


Goes On And On

by dearren



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Anxiety, Chris has a lot of them, Climbing Class, Hallucinations, M/M, MY SONS, Mental Health Issues, PTSD, Paranoia, Post-Canon, Post-Game(s), Slow Build, Suicidal Thoughts, Yes the Wendigos happened, a lot of the times you will not know what is and what isn't real, everyone has problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 14:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 33
Words: 22,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6911122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearren/pseuds/dearren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his dreams, he sees him. He stands in front of him, unharmed, glowing, smiling. Just like he used to. And they hug and they cry and everything is all right and suddenly his thoughts aren't dark anymore and his heart is beating fast enough again. Everything is all right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Habitual

**Author's Note:**

> I will be sure to include trigger warnings before every chapter

Over the past year Chris had started a habit of going to bed early. And not 10pm early, but when the sun is still up early. When night hasn't fallen yet and the Wendigos are still asleep and shadows don't sprout milky eyes and clawed hands yet. And he never gets up before sunrise. Not by choice. Fear binds him to his once comfortable bed, paralysing him until the sun rays melt the anxiety off.

He calls it a habit, lacking a better word. Maybe it's a tick, like when people touch statues or count their steps or avoid black cats. Maybe it's paranoia, looking over your shoulder one too many times and eyes never stopping to check and double check.

Whatever it is, it's something he's gotten used to for better or worse and sticks with it. So 7:30pm sharp is when Chris goes to bed on that day, checking under the bed, checking in the wardrobe, the bed again and closing the curtains just enough not to be bothered by anything outside but light still seeping through it comfortingly.

He doesn't notice the phone ringing isn't in his dream at first. He has been dreaming about Ashley and Sam and two summers ago when the three of them had camped for a week by a lake. In reality, there had been three other people accompanying them.

If it weren't for the display lighting up Chris wouldn't have dared to expand his hand in the dark to reach for his phone. Not yet. In the blueish light he finds the switch for his bedside lamp, throws a nervous look under his bed and then answers the call.

“Christopher?”

The voice of a woman. Something out of a dream just like the pictures of the girls swimming in the lake still lingering behind his eyelids.

“Mrs Washington?” Chris asks, no doubt in his question.

“Yes. Yes, it’s me. I'm … I know we haven't had the chance to talk recently.”

After their return from the mountain, the Washingtons had made it their honorary mission to call or at least text each of the kids at least twice a week. But after a couple of months, Chris stopped picking up when he saw the screenname blink on his mobile phone, simply staring it down until it stopped. It made him sick, how much they cared about him. He didn't do anything to earn their concerned questions, their honest apologies, their updates about -

\- “Josh.”

On the other line, he hears Mrs Washington draw a shaky breath. Her voice, as she speaks again, is weaker than before. Wretched. Exhausted.

“Yes. Christopher, it's … him. They found him, they found my son.”

He doesn't comfort her as she breaks into sobs, muffled through the phone. He stares right ahead at the blank wall without seeing. He sees him. A boy in a plaid shirt and an overall. All green eyes and sly smiles. Chris could easily un-imagine the dark bruises under those eyes and the cracks around the smile.

And as Mrs Washington finds her voice again, saying that they have found the boy in the mines and brought him to safety, Chris is up and putting on his clothes, regardless the time, regardless the darkness.

He silences the voice inside his head, the voice of paranoia and shame and guilt and anger with memories of Josh. He drowns it out with how his laugh sounds and how his face looks and it makes his heart hurt because he hasn't been able to do so without crumbling and falling apart in panic for so long. Too long. Its relieving.

And for a moment, everything seems so small. The mountain, the lodge, the terror. All the reasons why this shouldn't make him smile this bright. But he isn't afraid. Not now. He isn't tired or angry or anything. He's just a boy who wants his best friend back.


	2. Miles

The way to the Washington's is still alive in his mind, etched into the brighter parts of his brain, the few ones still untouched by the scavenging darkness. He hasn't taken this route in over a year.

The street lamps on the sides of the road are lit, blurring together, a line of orange light as Chris hurries through the dormant town.

Nighttime used to be his favourite. With the stars as his companions and the moon as his compass, Chris walked deserted streets and down to the river and into the forest that split the small town in two, the river a pulsing artery running all the way to the heart of the forest. Sometimes he met with Josh, sometimes he just wandered between the trees, feeling oddly comforted by the silence. It was always such a difference between the slow of the trees and the hectic of his home.

Passing through the blue, tall trees now, Chris doesn't waste energy on feeling nostalgic. His mind is tuned to only one station. Josh. Josh. Josh.

He knows it's a forty minute drive but as his vision focuses he is already stood right in front of it. A house, big, three stories high, large windows once welcoming, now looming over him, watching him like eyes. There's a sense of neglect in the way the paint cracks on the door and the flower pots hang abandoned and empty from the windowsills.

Standing there, he tries to shake the feeling that there's more than the dark windows watching him. He goes to ring the doorbell. Mrs Washington opens up almost immediately, despite the late hour dressed still in a pant suit, dark hair in a tight ponytail. 

“Hello, Mrs Washington.”

She greets him with a smile that walks the thin line between sad and happy. Those two seem to get closer and closer, the more days pass. Her warm complexion is a slightly darker shade of copper than her kids' but otherwise, Mrs Washington is the spitting image of the three siblings. Kind eyes, a mouth made for jokes and smiles and an elegant jaw. Her crow's feet are deeper than Chris remembers and the lines around her mouth don't lift up all the way. Chris wants to hug her.

“Christopher. Please, come in.” 

She leads the way even though he had spend most of his childhood in the house. The pictures on the walls are dusty, the floor creaks under their feet. His gaze lingers on the staircase leading up to the bedrooms as he follows Mrs Washington through the vast kitchen into the living room. Everything says money in the house. From the expensive interiors, imported German worktops for the kitchen counter and stools made from the finest wood to the way everything looks neat and arranged, a perfect display of a perfect house.

The first time Chris came to the Washington house he felt out of place in his hand-me-down jacket and dirty fingernails. Ashamed to be standing next to marble and gold while he was clearly used to stone and aluminium. But the family has never been anything but welcoming to the scrubby little kid. He basically grew up in the long hallways with expensive carpets and the stacks of old, hand-bound books and the smell of food being prepared by gourmet chefs, spending his afternoons wasting away with Josh in these luxurious halls.

His heart skips a beat and he feels his hands shaking as he steps into the vast room and -

There's a woman sat on the sofa. He feels miserable, all of a sudden.

The woman has an air of professionalism, in the way she stands up to greet him, her toothpaste smile and her clean clothes that smell of fabric softener make him sick. He wishes he hadn't come.

“You must be Christopher, then? Hello. I am Doctor Song. Shall we sit?”

Chris takes the cup of tea that Mrs Washington offers him before she sits down in the armchair opposite of Doctor Song and him. He doesn't remember sitting down. Or drinking his tea. The cup is empty and on the coffee table, the sky outside turning a milky shade of orange and pink, soft morning light falling through the high windows that make up the entirety of one wall of the living room.

“I'm … sorry? What did you just say?” he hears himself ask. He doesn't know what anyone said at all. 

“You asked me if you could see him and I said that you can, just not right now. Your friend, he's in a very … crucial state of his treatment. He needs our full attention and he as well needs to focus completely on his recovery. A visit from anyone would not be in favour of his journey. And you don't want to hinder him in getting better, now, do you?”

Chris is angry. He spent years growing up alongside a liar. And Doctor Song lies to him. But he listens, as she rambles on, sugar coating every word, eating up her own lie, believing that she is saying what would be best for him. 

“How is he, then?” he interrupts, putting more heat in his words than he intended to, startling the doctor ever so slightly.

“Well, like I said, it is very compli-”

“I want to know if he's okay!”

The woman's lips tighten. Has Chris been screaming his last question?

“Considering the circumstances...”

The cup hits the floor, breaking into pieces. Chris doesn't remember standing up but now he towers over Doctor Song. Mrs Washington, who has dozed off in the armchair, jumps to her feet in alarm.

He doesn't know what his face looks like but something about it makes Doctor Song's eyes widen and the last remnants of her fake lightness crumble. Chris can't process how he came to appear like this to her. Scary. He doesn't want to scare anyone.

Mrs Washington's hand is on his shoulder, a weight, anchoring him and as suddenly as the rage had welled up, it ebbs down, Chris slumping visibly.

“I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, Doctor Song, Mrs Washington. I think … I think I should go now. I'm sorry.”

The weight falls off his shoulder, the warmth gone. Doctor Song's eyes follow him outside. He feels them burning through his skull and he knows he will get a call.

In the beginning, the first weeks, they had been getting lots of calls. And visits. Psychiatrists, doctors, psychologists, trauma experts. Other than some of his friends, Chris declined every offer. He didn't want to talk or be drugged or whatever else they were saying would help him because he knew, he was certain, that nothing in the world would help him ever again.

There was that darkness. That lingering darkness that had taken hold of him on the mountain. That parasite sucking the life out of him one night at a time, one breath at a time. But until tonight, Chris had been able to keep it at bay. Now it is threatening to flood. If he isn't careful, he will drown in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping to do a weekly chapter upload from now on. Would that be cool or nah?


	3. Hallucinogens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING for  
> self-loathing  
> very very bad dealing with mental health issues  
> hallucinations

Three days pass, twenty-seven calls missed.

Chris doesn't leave his bed, staring at the door to his bedroom, imagining a hand knocking on it, a face peaking in, a familiar voice.

He doesn't think he understands, still. But maybe he relates. To how Josh had acted after his sisters had gone. The unreturned calls, the unheard voice messages, the ignored visits. He doesn't understand why he did it because he doesn't understand why he is doing it himself. But he relates. To that wish to be left alone. Completely and utterly alone.

“So you think self-loathing's gonna do you any good, Cochise?”

Chris shrugs his shoulders, hugging his blanket closer to him as he feels Josh sit down at the other side of his bed. The bed doesn't creak, there's no shift of weight on the mattress. But Chris still knows. The visits are too frequent not to.

“Listen, bro. You gotta stop this – whatever this is. Isn't you. Makes me feel weird.”

“Then don't look” Chris hisses, eyes locked onto the door, still. He feels Josh lying down next to him, feels his breath on his neck. There is nothing there, his mind says. Josh is so close, his heart says.

Chris has never done drugs. Not once. He doesn't even drink. But somehow, Josh, visiting him, it feels like Chris would imagine being drunk feels like. Or being high. Nothing else exists or matters despite the proximity of their bodies, the words spilling out from them both, memories and fantasies bleeding together.

“How could I look away? You never did. You never stopped trying.” Josh's voice is soft. He sounds more like his sisters than himself. They were always so alike, the three of them.

“Yeah, maybe I was wrong. Didn't help, after all.”

“You think?” Josh asks. Chris shuts his eyes. His voice is so close, so vibrant. So real.

“I couldn't stop your plan. I couldn't help you.”

“Because I didn't want to be helped.”

“And neither do I!”

Josh shifts closer to him. Chris can feel the warmth radiating from his friend. He want to turn around.

“See, that's the problem because I don't think that that is true.”

Chris' heart is banging against his ribcage, a physical pain in his chest, a tightness. It makes it hard to breathe.

“Turn around, Cochise. Look at me.”

“No.”

“Look at me, Chris. Look at me and we can figure things out. Together.”

Slowly, Chris rolls over. Eyes still shut. He can smell cold and smoke.

“Open your eyes.”

“I … I can't.” He is so scared. No. He doesn't want to look, he doesn't want to see. He can feel the dream shift into a nightmare.

The smell of rotting flesh fills Chris' lungs. He can hear water close to him, running, echoing in the caves. It is so cold. He holds his breath.

“Open your eyes and see, Christopher!”

It is dark. Outside, the moon and stars are hidden behind a thick layer of black clouds, the sound of rain against his window a steady drumming.

Chris blinks into the night, tears stinging in his eyes, his cheeks hot and his hands cold. He doesn't try to fall back asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god, why did i choose pesent tense for this i can't do it i am so sorry if i switch times please do correct me on anything!!


	4. Ode to Josh Washington

On the fifth day, Chris picks up the phone.

“Hello?” His own voice startles him. It sounds like a tree branch breaking, hoarse and rough. Not like in his memories where it's all sing-song and softness, the sunlight speaking and laughter erupting and Josh Washington sitting next to him.

“Chris? Chris, oh thank God you finally picked up.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose with his index and thumb. His glasses are somewhere, he can't remember where he put them. He doesn't mind the blurriness.

“Hey, Ash. Look, I'm sorry but I can't really talk right now.”

“Figured. But no. No chance. I'm downstairs. We all are. And you're gonna open the door, Chris, okay? You're gonna let us in and then we're gonna talk.”

Chris hangs up on her without a word, betrayal bitter on his tongue. He doesn't want their concern, don't they understand? Why don't they just leave him alone? He thinks he's sending the right signals. Don't they care what he wants? What he doesn't want?

His place is a mess, clothes scattered on the ground, half-eaten meals and he hasn't showered in days but he goes to unlock the door. He doesn't greet them, doesn't lead them inside or even looks at them. Just lets them pass, his friends, now shells and even without looking them he can tell they're almost as empty as himself. He almost feels sorry now for not at least trying to be more... Something.

They sit in his living room in uncomfortable silence while Chris studies them from the kitchen.

“You all look terrible” he comments, as he finally emerges from the kitchen, all eyes on him. The genuine concern in them makes him dizzy.

“Same to you, pal” says Matt, a weak smile. No one laughs. 

Chris inhales. “Listen, it's very … nice of you all to stop by but honestly I neither need nor want you here right now so if we could just end whatever this is supposed to be right now? I have things to do.”

They're still looking at him in the bright sunlight. His windows are always open when it's daytime. He hears a car beeping outside.

“We're not going anywhere” Emily says, crossing her arms in front of her chest. The others nod in agreement. “We just arrived and besides, this is by no means just about you. This is about all of us.”

“I didn't say -”

“Yeah, blah-di-blah, don't care. We're all fucked up, okay? The mountain, we were all there, together and we're the only ones we can really talk to about it. So we might as well. Who knows, might be, I don't know, therapeutic or some shit.” Despite her harsh words, there was no poison in her sentence. She has bangs now. He hasn't seen her in weeks. In a weird way, it calms Chris' mind. 

She says it isn't about him yet there they are, sitting, waiting as if for Chris to start their meeting, to agree for them all to begin.

His throat is too dry for speech, he sits down quietly on the ground next to Sam but not too close and then they start. 

First they laugh. Then they talk. Then they cry. Chris just listens. He wouldn't know what to talk about himself. That's a lie. He knows. But he doesn't want to, still.

He asks them to leave at half past nine and they go quietly, sniffling, all but Sam who gives him a hug and a promise – threat? - to call him in the morning. Her eyes tell him she noticed that he hasn't said anything of use. It doesn't matter. He won't pick up anyway. Not for another few days, at least. He's drained and his bones ache. The others' stories whirlwind through his head as he goes for his night routine. The wardrobe, under the bed, the window, the bed.

The meeting has reminded him more of an interrogation than a therapy session. It reminded him of the police ruthlessly pressing on after he's broken down crying, wanting to know every detail and then not believing him. Asking him about Josh. About Hannah and Beth. He couldn't and he can't and he won't because even now with Josh found it doesn't feel like he's any closer to his friend. And the guilt isn't any less tormenting or true. 

“I'm so sorry I left you. I should have known better. I'm so sorry I left you. I should have come back for you.”

This night, he weeps himself to sleep, blocking out the screeches and screams in his head with his mantra. His song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if anyone cares but even though i missed yesterday i will continue to upload a chapter every saturday idk


	5. Your Brokenness is a Work of Art

“Chris? It's Sam. I wanted to talk but what a surprise, you're not picking up. Call me back, I want to talk.”

“Pick up, dammit, you idiot. We need to talk. You and me. Soon. Call me.”

“Chris, call me back, okay? I know how you feel, I just want to help you. Please.”

“Don't do this. Remember how angry we were when … just don't be like that, okay?”

“Remember when you threw your phone at the wall when Josh didn't pick up when you called him? Guess what, I'm aiming right now!”

“This is the last time I'm calling you it's your responsibility now. I can't keep reaching out if you don't take my help. Just remember, what would you have done, if it were vice versa? What did you do, when it was, with Josh? Call me.”

*

“I know it's 5am but I had to make sure you wouldn't take the call. You can come over later. I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm doing this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'll post the second part to this chapter tonight or tomorrow, i know this is exceptionally short but that's what it is
> 
> i don't know if you can do this here but this and chapter 6 are supposed to be chapter 5a and 5b idk but maybe we just gotta roll with them being chapter 5 and 6


	6. Let Our Hearts, Like Doors, Open Wide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all my chapter titles seem to be sleeping at last songs lately, oops
> 
> WARNINGS for  
> implied mental health issues  
> hallucinations / surreality

It's ironic, Chris thinks. That things are reversed, now. And he sees in the eyes of his friend, that she doesn't think of it that way. 

It's tragic, to Sam. That the one to fight so hard would now not fight at all.

“It's a bit of a mess, I haven't gotten to cleaning in a while. You see, I've been busy.”

“With what?” Sam asks. She sits on the couch, Chris is picking up stray clothes from the floor. His hand hovers inches over an old shirt.

“With nothing. With everything. I don't know.” He grabs the tee, throwing it into a basket to join the others. Sam watches him, eyes idly trying to figure him out. How could anyone if he couldn't even do it himself.

The floor is devoid of clothes, the kitchen is clean and it is barely midday. There's no more distractions. Sam turns to him. He doesn't remember when he sat down next to her on the couch. 

“Let's talk about Josh.”

The name burns in his stomach. He doesn't like her using it. He doesn't like anyone using it. It's sacred.

“Melinda called me, too, you know? The next day, after you were there, she called me and told me that they had found him. That he was safe, in treatment. Recovering.” 

She stares out the window, a faint smile on her lips as she talks on. It doesn't seem to sit right. Like clothes from last summer that still fit but don't quite. Not because they're too small but because you're not who you were last summer and they belong there and you belong here. That's what Chris thinks Sam's smile looks like. Out of its time on a face that moved on from smiles altogether. He wonders what he looks like to her. 

Maybe he looks out of his time as well. Or maybe he's just Chris, only a little less happy, a little less soft. Chris, but a little less.

“Did you hear what I just said? Chris? Chris, are you list – shit, are you all right, Chris? You're crying.”

“Yeah, sorry. I guess I am.”

He reaches to wipe his eyes but Sam, always so fast, catches him by the wrists, forcing him to look her in the eye. Only now he notices, he hadn't done so before. Not in quite some time. Hazel stares against blue.

“Chris. Are you okay?”

He averts his gaze, closing his eyes against the tears. He nods. “Yes.”

“Chris, stop lying to me. Look at me. Are you okay?”

He doesn't want to, but he looks back up. He is met by bright green eyes.

“No. I'm sorry.”

“You don't have to be” Josh assures. His hands on Chris' wrists are warm. Not cold, dead, wet.

Warm. Alive.

“Yes, I do. I always had to be. I'm the okay-one.” Chris draws a shaky breath, tasting copper, like a storm.

“I never asked you to be.” Josh looks sad. The kind of sad you look when you realize someone else is way more sad than you are. It's concern. It's empathy. An empathic sad. It's a face worn well by Joshua Washington.

“But I wanted to be. For you. Now I can't. You're … you're not there for me to be okay for ...”

“Then be okay for yourself.”

It's Sam's hand that reaches to cup his cheek, tears of her own now running down her face. “Oh, Chris. I need you to talk to me in order for me to help you.”

How many seconds passed? Sam is gone now. Chris vaguely recalls leading her outside and promising to pick up the next time she would call. He doesn't believe himself and neither does she but she smiles nonetheless that last-summer-smile and leaves.

Despite not having wanted her around in the first place, her absence is noticeable. The shadows in the corners of the rooms seem more threatening than before. It is easier for his mind to play tricks on him when he is alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i won't be able to upload the next two saturdays so i will instead upload chapter 7 on monday and maybe even chapter 8 on tuesday, depending on whether or not i feel like y'all would care for a two week delay


	7. Protection

They make no progress. Not about Chris. Sam, on the other hand, isn't as closed off as she appeared to be. Two days into what appears to be evolving into daily meetings between the two, she cries for the first time. They were talking about Hannah and Beth. Chris only cries after she has left, sinking to his knees, brought down by all of it on his shoulders. All of it. Too much.

The next day, Sam brings Ashley along. Chris minds, even though he says he doesn't. He can't stand himself when he's around Ashley. He doesn't deserve her forgiving him for what he did. He didn't chose her and still she chooses him now. He doesn't deserve them. 

It's when they're all together again, almost a month later, that Chris says the first real thing.

“I'm scared they'll get me. Even here. Even now. Bright daylight, miles and miles away.”

He keeps his eyes shut as he talks, knowing all too well that talking about them, the Wendigos, conjures them up. Lurking in the shadows, bloody claws, thirsty eyes, death everywhere around them.

“Shit, man. Me too. Can't sleep without a nightlight.”

“Same. I always have to check my whole flat before I can get to sleep.”

“I could honestly fucking wet myself at the thought of those things.”

“Guys, I moved back in with my parents like I'm five or something.”

“And the dreams. That's even worse.”

“Yeah. They're the worst.”

Chris stares at them. 

At Mike. Always brave, always cocky Mike and notices the nervous twitch of his nine fingers and the scars on his arms. 

At Ashley. Smile as bright as her hair and her eyes are bleak, clouded over with so much that she can't say. 

At Sam. Motherly, kind, courageous and he sees her slumped shoulders and helpless look. 

At Emily. Sharp-tongued and witty. She tells her hollow jokes, her hands clawing at her own clothes, holding on for dear life.

At Matt. Nice, happy-go-lucky Matt who now looks to the ground instead of the sky, his smile upside down. 

At Jess. The beautiful and glowing, face and mind alike. She is grey, the light around her dimmed.

And somewhere, not in his brain, not in the darkness in there, in the light and in his heart, Chris swears that he will protect them. Make it easier for them. And he knows the first step.

“I'll go to therapy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in the next few chapters:  
> chris goes to therapy  
> chris fights his demons  
> chris hallucinates josh  
> chris chris chris
> 
> i won't be able to upload the next two saturdays which is why i'm uploading this right now
> 
> so the next chapter will be up around the 11th, hopefully
> 
> stay tuned


	8. Preparation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> hallucinations

It's a drive out of town and through a small forest, through some fields, bearing the first signs of spring. Small leafs cover the dirt and trees and bushes by the road start to bloom in pastel.

Sam drives him. She offered to do so, he declined, she showed up regardless. 

“I'll wait in the car, if you really don't want me to go with you, but I'm driving you anyway.”

Chris sits stiffly, his hands folded in his lap, the songs on the radio just static in his head. Sam is talking about school and her parents and her cat and something Chris doesn't even catch. He's scared. Really, really scared.

When Sam pulls into the wide, grey parking area, Chris wants to scream. There's a few cars there, two or three motorbikes and a bicycle, all neatly stood next to each other in a straight line. Sam parks on the other side. First car. When Chris doesn't know what to do with his mind, he counts things.

“I don't wanna go” Chris says. Four words. Three breaths. Sam blinks twice.

“Course you don't, but you will. Come on, I'll come with you, that okay?”

He leaves Sam in the car, Chris promises to be good. One lie.

The building is quite small. It doesn't look like Chris had imagined. No barred windows, no big sign spelling “Psychos inside”. It is just a house. Red bricks and white windows and flower pots next to the door. 

His heart hurts in his chest. “I really don't want to.” He turns to Josh. His face is less pale than the last time he saw him. Really saw him. He looks too young and as his hand slips into Chris' it doesn't quite fit. Two-summers-ago-Josh.

Inside they're alone. The waiting room is big, chairs line the white walls under pictures of rivers and meadows and the sky. The white light above reflects in the white, tiled floor. Chris doesn't like it. It's too bright. It's like shining a flash light directly into one's eyes. He has to squint against the bright, shining light. He can't see. There's no radio now but there's still static in his ears, rushing, whispering, screeching - 

“You must be Christopher. Hello. I'm Dr Mellows. You can call me John. Why don't we sit down.”

Chris is in another room. Josh is gone. Dr Mellows, 40-something, brown hair neatly combed and wearing a maroon monstrosity of a sweater, is already sat in a dark blue armchair, a folder labelled with Chris' name on his lap. 

Chris can't move. Dr Mellows extends an arm, a friendly gesture, pointing somewhere behind Chris. 

A smile is on his face. Not as toothpaste-y as Dr Song's but just as well practised. He can tell that Dr Mellows smiles like this for funerals and christenings alike. He wonders which one this is.

“Sit.”

He sits. The leather of the couch is worn. Many people sit down in this room with this therapist and Chris is one of them. 

“It's okay, Christopher. It's normal.”

“What is?”

“To feel uncomfortable.”

“I'm not uncomfortable.”

“Honesty is a big part of this process.”

Chris feels Dr Mellows' eyes bore into him. It burns in his brain. Has time jumped again? How long has he been in that stuffed, old room?

“Can we stop?” Chris asks. He feels tired. So tired. His head hurts and his eyes sting and the book-shelf-walls of the room seem to come closer. They shift inwards, steadily. They will crush him.

“Why are you here, Chris?” asks Dr Mellows. Chris asks himself how someone can be so cold and precise while the walls move towards you.

“I want my friend back” he hears himself answering, eyes locked on the bookshelves. Steady. Steady. Closer. Closer.

“Then let's do just that.”

Chris remains silent. The walls have stopped moving. They're back in place. The books on the shelves are just books and the static in his ears is just the wind blowing in through the open window behind Dr Mellows. A shadow moves outside, Chris catches greenish skin and long limbs.

“What's your friend's name?”

“Josh.”

Dr Mellows writes on a paper. He writes slowly, taking his time. Much more time than it should take to write down a four-letter name.

“Tell me about Josh.”

Chris can feel tears well up in his eyes. He blinks them away. 

“I don't know what to say.”

“What's he like?”

“He's … he's a good person.”

“That's a fairly odd way to describe a friend, don't you think?” Dr Mellows rests his hand on the paper in front of him, as if wanting to hide what he has written already. Way too much words for such a short conversation.

“No.”

“It is. Why would you feel the need to tell me he is a good person. Wouldn't I assume he is, seeing as you're friends with him?”

“I don't know.”

“Why did you feel the need to tell me that Josh is a good person, Chris?” 

“I don't know.”

“Do you think Josh is a good person?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think you are a good person?”

Chris has to think on it. He thinks about the good people he knows. About Sam and her kindness or Matt and his caring. He was all that, kind and caring, not too long ago. And he thinks of Josh. He thinks about Josh's smile and his eyes and his laugh. Josh is a good person. But Chris is nothing like Josh.

“I don't know” he says and he really doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i will be back to posting regularly now :~)


	9. Confontation

He is the one to call. Mrs Washington answers the phone a mere second in. “Washington, hello?”

“Mrs Washington? This is … It's Chris.”

She falls silent and he wonders if he has interrupted her in a thought. Or maybe something else. Who did she expect would call instead?

“Oh. Oh! Chris! How lovely of you to call. I'm glad.”

He stims his fingers together. Another one of his habits. Drum. Drum. Drum. A steady sound, rhythmic, like his heartbeat.

“I'm getting therapy now” he says, flatly. He hopes he is decent at hiding how much he despises the therapy. The room stuffed with books and Dr Mellows and his shallow words. And himself, being weak and taking part and breaking apart in said room in front of Dr Mellows, scribbling down notes, watching him in a predatory manner.

“Oh” Mrs Washington says again. She sounds nervous. “That's … well, that's wonderful. I'm so happy to hear. How is it?”

“It's good” he lies, hiding the crack in his voice behind a cough. “How … how's Josh?”

He worries his lip and in the few seconds it takes her to answer there are a million bad news in his head.

“He's helpless.”

“He's dead.”

“He turned.”

“He's gone.”

“He's fine, actually. Better than any of us expected, really. It's a miracle.”

“When can I see him?” The question burns like acid on his tongue. It has ever since Mrs Washington's first call. Drum. Drum.

“How many times have you been to therapy, Chris?”

The words echo in Chris' head like it is a cave. The bounce from the stone walls and rush down with the water, pool into his mind and accumulate. There is so many things in Chris' cave.

“You don't want me to see him” Chris says, matter-of-factly. His fingers had stopped drumming. He stands very still, phone pressed to his ear. He can hear Mrs Washington breathe, at a loss for a plausible lie. She resorts to the truth.

“Not … yet, no. When you visited … you didn't seem ready. I wanted Dr Song to meet you, to evaluate whether or not if would be … healthy for both o-”

The phone hits the wall with a satisfying whoosh and then a crack and a clack when it falls to the floor and the cling of the small grass shrapnels, like dust, settling around it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is so short, lol  
> if 2 people comment on this then i'll upload another chapter the next day?


	10. Running Low

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> hallucinations  
> dishonesty

In his dreams, he sees him. He stands in front of him, unharmed, glowing, smiling. Just like he used to. And they hug and they cry and everything is all right and suddenly his thoughts aren't dark anymore and his heart is beating fast enough again. Everything is all right.

“Tell me, Chris. What happened that tore you and your friend apart?”

Dr Mellows does his best, Chris has decided. He does his best to give Chris the impression that he's doing better every session and that what he's going through is normal and that somehow someday he is going to be his old self again. 

Dr Mellows is an excellent liar.

“I can't. You wouldn't believe me.”

Chris sits in his usual armchair. Compared to how he feels during the session, he might even really be doing better. His anxiety level is bearable and the walls don't move and he even takes off his shoes to tuck his feet under his body, leisurely, sometimes.

“If you feel that way than maybe use a metaphor. Something that I would understand” Dr Mellows offers, stage-readily smiling.

This reminds him of the questionings. When the police first found them on the mountain and locked them up for days in dark rooms with cameras and specially trained personnel and so many questions and so little trust. So little understanding. Chris cried a lot, during those hours of interrogation. Trauma, they said. And they knew less than half of it. 

“Josh is sick. Was sick. Is sick. And I didn't notice. I didn't help him and he made mistakes that he wouldn't have made if I had stopped him. And I could have. I just didn't.”

He pulls his feet onto the chair, chin on his knees. He doesn't bother to take off his shoes. If Dr Mellows minds, he doesn't show.

“Why didn't you help him?” he asks, scribbling notes into his notebook he always uses for Chris. He wonders if it's just for him or if he always uses that same notebook for his patients. Part of him, the same part that clings onto the thought that therapy might actually help him and he would be all right again, hoped this notebook was his and his alone.

“I think … I didn't want to admit that he was sick. I had always been the sickly one, the one with the allergies and the colds but Josh? He never got sick. He's too strong for that.”

Chris wipes a tear from his cheek. He doesn't remember starting to cry. Dr Mellows doesn't look at him and Chris is thankful for that.

He is doing this for Josh. To even get a chance to see him again.

“I'm never going to be as strong as you” Chris chokes out. Josh sits, cross-legged next to Dr Mellows on the couch who is still writing things down in the notebook.

“Yeah. You're much stronger. You have to put up with the both of us.”

“That's not true” Chris counters, almost offended. There's more tears streaming down his face, betraying him. “I don't have to. I want to put up with you. You just won't let me.”

“It's my mum, this time, actually” Josh smiles, leaning back casually. One of the dark parts of Chris brain tells him that this won't be the Josh he'll find when he finally gets the permission to see him.

“Very funny.”

“What is?” asks Dr Mellows. At some point, he left the couch and now stands in front of the dark, shining oak desk that takes up the rest of the space that isn't filled with comfortable sitting options and sometimes moving sometimes stationary bookcases.

“Nothing. Was just thinking about something.”

When Chris looks back to the couch, Josh has vanished. Dr Mellows doesn't know about the hallucinations. Chris doesn't think he could ever tell anyone. There are some truths that are too heavy on his tongue to put out into already damaged the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you actually commented and i almost cried thank you :~)


	11. Stairways and Highways

“When can I see him” Chris demands. Mrs Washington had been reluctant to pick up the phone and when he finally gets her, he doesn't have any nerves left for niceties.

“I'm sorry, we don't know, it's compli-”

“What do I have to do that you will let me see him.”

There's determination in his voice. He's practised in front of a mirror to get his message across without crying or shouting. It was quite some work to remain calm. Out of the corner of his eye, Chris sees Josh lurking in the kitchen. When he turns his head, there's no one.

“I don't know, Chris. It's hard to say. Dr Song just doesn't think it's good for either of you. You're both very fragile.”

He hangs up. Fragile. His hands tremble. The screen of his phone beams up at him through shattered glass. He sets it down on the table, carefully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter'll be uploaded shortly. Like a few chapters ago, these two are supposed to be part a and part b but ye. hang in there!!


	12. All Hell breaks Loose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> losing track of time / time jumps  
> suicidal thoughts

Chris doesn't sleep the nights after his last call. He's too wound up, too angry, too sad. If his eyes do betray him, falling shut without his explicit demand, he sees teeth and claws and bullets headed straight for him, ripping him apart, breaking him up.

He's back in his shell, retreated, defeated. He ignores calls and texts on his phone, knocks and voices at his door. There are stones thrown at his window, swear words yelled upwards. He doesn't answer to any of this. His mind is too loaded with guilt and anxiety. Like the old computers Chris used to love tinkering with, he freezes up instead of sorting through all the problems twisting his insides. It's not healthier. It's not cleverer. It's just easier.

_She doesn't want me to see him. She thinks I am the one that will harm him. It will be bad for Josh if I see him. I can't see Josh. I'm not good for Josh. I'm not good for anyone._

Chris doesn't remember the three hour drive or even hailing a cab or researching the directions or anything that lead up to him and a suitcase outside a building cradled in lush greenery and no sound but birds and cicadas around him.

He only recalls having an idea. Or two, actually. 

Plan B being, ordering a taxi and admitting himself to a mental hospital somewhere far out the city where he could be no harm to his friends.

Plan A, driving by himself, not to a hospital, but to a tree that looks sturdy and inviting enough to be his destination.

He is somewhat relieved to have gone for option B. Or angry. Or sad. They all feel the same to him, nowadays.

Suitcase in hand, Chris steps into the old, rustic building under a metal sign, stating in bold letters: “Lakeview Mental Health Institute”. It also reads Established 1889 too, which reminds Chris of all those terrible, old, black and white movies about doctors sticking metal rods into the brains of the mentally ill. He's watched them for hours, sat between mountains of popcorn and chocolate and his best friend boring him with useless knowledge about this actor and that film, the proud son of a proud filmmaker.

Right about now, a metal rod through his head doesn't seem so bad.

Handing in the papers, neatly filled in, boxes ticked, information double checked, Chris takes out his cell phone, writing a text to Sam.

“I'm at a mental hospital. I'm not all right and I'm trying to be and this might be my last shot. I don't know. Please don't worry. Say hi to the others. I'll text you the address when they give me my phone back in a few days. You can't visit within the first four or so weeks. Also they want my shoelaces, apparently. Whatever.”

He presses send, while a nurse takes his suitcase away for investigation. As well as his laces. And then his phone.

And then he's there.


	13. Old Habits Die Hard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> hallucinations

Chris decides that the primal emotion twisting his guts this time around is relief.

He feels relieved to have done something remotely right.  
He feels relieved to be out of his apartment and the moving walls of Dr Mellows' office.  
He feels relieved that he's handed over the responsibility for his well being to someone that wouldn't be hurt by it.  
He feels relieved enough to sleep.

There's a window above his bed that he can't open and a door that gets locked behind him. Maybe he should have put a check on suicidal thoughts. Those people get roommates, don't they? His only company is his mind.

The bed is smaller than his at home and it's shorter but also softer and smells of fabric softener and not of sweat and the stink of fear. He tries to delete that thought from his mind. His mind. So awake.

The nurse said they'd start in the morning after breakfast. There will be an assessment and a private counselling session and then, who knew. Therapy, Chris suspects. A lot of it. But that's what he came for. To find someone that can help him. Not for his sake, of course. For Josh's.

Chris is as close to being content as someone on their first night at a mental hospital could be as he closes his eyes and dozes off.

But his mind is never kind anymore.

It's the smell that wakes him. Musty and sweet and warm like a summer's day and so familiar.

When he opens his eyes, he's in Josh's bedroom.

The logical part of his brain recognizes the scene, recognizes the memory. But the rest is preoccupied being in awe.

It's the same room as it has always been. High ceilings, royally red walls covered in posters and photographs and handmade drawings. An unmade, large bed next to a tall glass door leading out to the balcony. A mess of a desk on the opposite wall and a TV larger than any TV should have been, back when Chris was young.

And Josh. Oh. 

Josh sits cross-legged on the edge of his bed, controller in hand. His hair is tousled and his springtime green eyes fixed on the TV screen. There's a game he's playing but in the dream, it doesn't make sense. It's too blurred and unreasonably fast but still Chris is overwhelmed by all of it. There's the dreamcatcher him and Josh made together when they were 12. Strings and stones and feathers. And the medal Josh won at the school rally, he only took part ironically.

But the best thing is still Josh himself. Barely 14 years old, he looks far older than Chris feels. Where Chris is soft and slow, Josh is lean and active. Where Chris is insecure, Josh smiles like war. And they're a good team. Their souls still unharmed. Not yet. Not yet. Their minds still safe. Not yet. Still innocent. Still alive. Not yet.

Chris sits down next to Josh. Like dreams go, he suddenly holds a controller and the sky outside changed from midday blue to afternoon orange and night onyx in less than a second.

The two boys have abandoned their videogame. Josh won, of course. Josh always wins.

Now, they're lying on Josh's bed, faces close, laughing and joking and gossiping about school and homework and their friends and their parents.

“I'm so glad to know you” Dream-Chris says. “I'm so glad you're all right” Chris says.

They're so close. Chris can smell Josh. He always can. Sunbeams and honey soap and charcoal, either from drawing or from cooking. Both things Josh secretly loved doing, but no one was to know. No one but Chris and his parents and his -

The scene shifts. The room tilts and Chris rolls off the bed, screaming. The red walls, the high ceiling, the TV, their dreamcatcher, all melting into black, dripping, dripping, dripping.

Far slower than gravity should allow, Chris plummets into a pool of icy, liquid black. His head goes under, he can't breathe. Panic drags itself around Chris' legs, immobilising him. He's drowning. Where's Josh? Now. Now. Now.

It's cold. The kind of cold that creeps under doors and under blankets and bites skin and bone alike. The kind of cold that feels like death.

Lungs screaming, Chris bursts through the surface, black sticking to his face and his hair and his fingers, glueing together his eyelids and his lips, threatening to glue his nostrils as well. The smell is so prominent, that Chris heaves. Rotting flesh. Rotting human flesh.

Suddenly, his feet land on solid ground, the black around him draining away. There are the unmistakable sounds of a cave around him. And the drip, drip, drip of water falling from human hair onto stone.

The logical part, the real Chris, is screaming for Dream-Chris to keep his eyes shut. But Dream-Chris doesn't listen. He never does. Drip. Drip. Drip.

In front of him are three figures. Not people. Not anymore. Their elongated arms hang down to their knees, hands ending in crooked claws instead of fingers. Their clothes are tattered and ripped, revealing green-blue skin underneath. And the faces. 

Dream-Chris screams now as well. The half Wendigo half human Washington siblings take a step forward. Chris can't move. They're not his friends. They are abominations of his friends, human enough to remind him what they once were and Wendigo enough to scare him to death. Neither running nor standing still would save him now. The smell of rotting flesh is everywhere, clinging to Chris' throat, strangling him.

 

*

The claws on his arms soften, become hands, fingers, shaking him.

Out of reflex, Chris bolts up, the bed creaking, jumping to the far corner of the small room, arms held up in defence.

Who he's defending against turns out to be a male nurse, not a Wendigo. The dream weighs heavily on his eyelids. It's hard to keep them open. Chris still feels as if trapped in the viscous black pool.

“It's all right, Christopher. It was a dream. You are safe here. See? I am unarmed.” The man holds up both his hands. No claws. No green tint. Chris feels his muscles relax. But he doesn't move out of the corner yet.

“What time is it?” he wants to know. The nurse seems surprised.

“About 5 in the morning. Breakfast won't be served until 8, so you gotta sleep a little more.” His smile is more genuine and less Hollywood than the other medical professionals Chris has been in touch in the last few months. He lets his arms fall to his sides. The drowsiness of fatigue is starting to wear off, the fuzz around everything solidifying again. Chris is waking up.

“I don't want to sleep” Chris says.

“I understand. But you're going to need your power for the day. Do you want something to help you sleep?” The nurse offers, kind smile and aware eyes.

“No!” No sleeping pills.

The nurse seems to sense Chris' distress because he puts up his hands in a defeated manner. “All right. Just try to keep quiet, then. We're gonna send someone 'round waking you when breakfast's ready.”

“Okay” Chris says. He doesn't leave his corner until the nurse has gone and locked the door behind him. Then he drags himself back to bed, the smell of clean sheets gone already. 

Chris lies on his back, staring at the grey ceiling. He doesn't dare to close his eyes for sleep again. Instead, he counts the seconds. From then to the first bird. From the first bird to the break of dawn. From dawn to three knocks on his door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't get used to chapters this long though


	14. An Overview

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> hallucinations

Chris comes to think of the Lakeview Mental Health Institute as a Hospital quite soon. Mostly because of the probing and poking, the doctors dressed in white and the meds and the long talks about health.

One thing he likes about the place, though, are art classes. His first week of probation is almost over when the nurse, who turned out to be named David, offers him a sheet with extracurriculars. They aren't called extracurriculars, because this isn't a school but a hospital, yet they remind Chris of high school afternoons spent on band practice and debates. And they remind him of skipping said extracurriculars with Josh. 

Josh.

So Chris takes on drawing classes. He's absolute shit. 

Josh was always the creative one, the one that had a sketchbook and expensive watercolours and knew every single conspiracy theory surrounding the Mona Lisa. 

Naturally, drawing, Chris feels closer to Josh. 

Sometimes he even joins him, ratty notepad and charcoal in hand, sitting down next to Chris. 

They're doing a still life. A basket filled to the brim with fruits, vibrant in the unnatural light. Chris and some other people sit in a loose circle around the fruits, drawing in silence.

There's no instructor or teacher. This isn't about learning how to draw. This is about drawing as a coping mechanism. About art to relax and about paint to refocus. At least it says so on the posters on the walls.

And it works. Even Chris' poor pencil apple relaxes him a little. The wrong colours slow his heartrate. The messiness calms his mind. Eases the edges, rounds them. Drawing, Chris feels almost like his old self again. The one that was and would never be a risk to Josh. Or himself. Or anyone else.

He goes to the art course three times a week. And he has yoga as well, every second morning. And a nature class, that goes on walks through the dew wet grass on Saturday mornings and studies pinecones and birdsongs and butterflies.

Chris' first two weeks at the Lakeview Mental Health Institute pass, feeling more like vacation than anything else. Even with taking two pills every morning and being watched a little too close to be comfortable during lunchtime.

If it weren't for the nights, Chris might even have enjoyed Plan B.

Because at night, when there aren't fruit baskets or insects or ridiculous yoga poses, Chris is more vulnerable than ever.

From under his double-checked bed come inhumane yells and growls and outside his barred window claws scratch the glasspanes. Not one night passes, where Chris doesn't bolt upright, clingy with sweat and dizzy with heart palpitations. David tells the doctors and they add another pill to Chris' morning routine.

And Chris thinks, is this what Josh felt when we didn't really believe him or didn't really listen or didn't really understand and just said “it's going to be all right” simply for the sake of saying anything? Just adding another pill and waiting for it to alter his mind so they can stop worrying? Numbing the pain instead of addressing it? Guilt eats at Chris' insides like a mold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how is everyone? :~)


	15. Indirectly

“You could come back” Sam offers. Chris hears the background noise through the phone, identifying the mall. The rich sounds of people talking over one another, music blaring from inside of stores packed with clothes and food and stuff, spilling down steps and three floors of consuming and buying. Chris used to love the mall. Now the mere thought of it makes his stomach turn.

“Where are you?” he asks, blatantly ignoring her annoyed huff.

“Work. But seriously, Chris. You could come. Mike, Ash and I started group therapy, there's a spot for you, too!”

Chris worries the hem of his light blue shirt. Mandatory clothing. Light blue shirt, ill fitted and also light blue trousers. Shoes without laces. A plastic bracelet with a number that stands for Chris. Or maybe it stands for Crazy Head Case. Who knows.

“I have group therapy here” Chris says. He's sat on his bed, golden afternoon light falling through the rectangular window to his left, filling the room with a pleasant shine. It is Thursday. His probation time ended on Tuesday. Two days to work up the courage to call is far less than normally. Whether it's the nature walks or three pills a day, Chris doesn't know.

“You know what I mean. We miss you.”

He misses them too. He misses Josh more. He misses Josh and himself.

“When can we come visit?” Sam asks on a lighter note, apparently having accepted that she couldn't persuade Chris to leave Lakeview. She would try another day. Chris appreciates her for always trying.

“Don't know” Chris answers, leaning back against the cool, white wall. If he listens closely, he can hear two people talk on the other side of the wall. One of which he recognizes as David.

“Well... it's nice that you called.” It sounds a lot like a frustrated way to say goodbye. Chris sighs. A mechanism.

“Yeah. They just gave me back my phone. I have to hand it in soon but I'll have it every weekend for a few hours and when I ask for it, probably.”

Sam doesn't say anything. For a moment, there's just the sounds of the mall.

“I gotta go now. I'll call again” Chris says, truthfully. That surprises him.

“Call the others as well, okay? I'm kinda tired acting as a messenger all the time.”

She tries to be funny and Chris smiles at that. A second surprise.

“Okay. I will.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay but do you prefer chapters like this or longer ones??


	16. The Unbecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> hallucinations  
> mental health issues  
> depression (mentioned)

Chris has therapy for the first time in the evening.

The room is spacious, not at all like Dr Mellows' cramped bureau. It gives off a much more modern vibe, lacking the mismatched leather furniture and dusty bookshelves. Instead, white plastic chairs litter the floor here and there, a shape somehow resembling an oval but not quite. Group therapy, then. The walls are beige, soothing, draped with posters both medical ones and ones with beautiful landscapes of New Zealand and other pretty places.

Chris, intentionally scared, feels more and more curious instead as the room fills. People, ranging from a little younger than Chris to some ten years older than him, all chatting with each other. Chris doesn't join in with the talk.

The last person to enter is a nurse. She is tiny and round and Asian and not much older than Chris. 

Without planning to, Chris comes to like her. Her name is Ann and she doesn't bombard them with questions like Chris has expected. Rather, she gives an impulse and suddenly, everyone is talking. It's not like in the movies, where one has to stand up, give a speech about themselves and their case and everyone greets them in unison and applauds.

It's more like a get together with long lost friends, talking about this and that, sometimes about problems, sometimes about sports, sometimes about nightmares and sometimes about the weather. Two hours fly by and Chris feels infinitely lighter leaving the room than he has, entering it.

Chris didn't say anything during those two hours. He's good at listening. That's what people always tell him. And yet, it feels like his heart is a little less troubled and his mind a little less dark. Maybe he doesn't have to force it.

*

Individual therapy is different. But just that it's less people and the room is smaller. The pictures on the beige walls are of Hawaii and not New Zealand.

“What are your nightmares about?” asks Ann. 

Where Dr Mellows sounds pressing and calculating, she sounds kind and genuinely interested. She doesn't have a notepad. She just sits there, next to Chris not opposite to him, on a pastel pink, fluffy couch Chris could very well imagining Ann buying and bringing in herself.

“Things. Bad things. Monsters. My friends. My friends as monsters. Monsters killing my friends. The list goes on.”

Ann nods. “I usually dream that something is chasing me and I can't seem to be able to run away properly.”

Chris considers that. “I don't seem to be able either.”

“In your dreams?” Ann asks, raising a thin, black eyebrow.

Chris shrugs. “I guess.”

“What are you running away from? And don't say the monsters. I mean in real life. Right now. You admitted it yourself, didn't you?”

The questions should feel invasive but Chris finds himself liking Ann. And unlike with Sam, he doesn't feel bad for telling her. It can't hurt her. She doesn't know him. He doesn't have to protect her from what's inside of him. She's trained for this. She has seen the monsters that are people's minds.

And then he tells her. He unleashes his mind.

He tells her about Josh and about basically growing up with him since third grade. About Hannah and Beth and about Sam and the others. And then about Josh's illness and the night of the incident. About losing Josh for the first time. How they were invited to see him again and how he has felt incredible like he's been invited back into Josh's life. And then he's failed him. He's failed him long ago. 

He leaves out the Wendigos, the beheaded stranger, the near-death situations. Those truths are the heavy ones. He couldn't spill them, even if he tried to. They are too deeply sewn into his mind, still.

“That's why I'm here. I've seen it happen to Josh. I don't want it to happen to me. I mean it is, kinda. But it's the early stages, the one where he decided to hide and abandon us. I can't hurt my friends like that.”

Ann has tears in her eyes. It doesn't strike Chris as unprofessional but as compassionate. Unconsciously, Chris tries to save that moment for later.

*

“Forgiveness is a privilege” Ann says. Usually, Chris can’t stand people that throw wannabe-wise mantras around like confetti for a parade, waiting for nothing but a smile and a nod in response and maybe a “well said”. But it takes more than fortune-cookie-wisdom to impress a boy that has seen the wonders and horrors of the world. Both in the same place. Both in the same person.

It seems different on Ann. Maybe because she doesn’t look at him while she says it or maybe because it is the middle of the night and Chris doesn’t feel afraid. Why does he not feel afraid?

“And I’m not meaning to patronize you. I’m just saying that there is some people that deserve it more than others.”

Thinking on it, why is Ann in his room anyway? He doesn’t remember calling for anyone. Or waking up, per se. On the other hand, over the past months Chris has lost the ability to tell dream and reality apart a little. But he has begun learning to spot the differences again.

Hint 1: How time doesn’t exist.   
Hint 2: How numbers and writings and reason have no place in the realms of dreams.   
Hint 3: How the awareness of his own body is muffled and off like the feeling right before pins and needles strike.

He can feel ants crawling under his skin now. Or can he?

“This is a dream, isn’t it?”

Josh looks at him, skin coloured silver by the moon instead of bronze.

“I am afraid so.”

“You’re not real” Chris says, impressed by his matter-of-fact words. His heart isn’t as sure. It never is. Because it is a weak thing that longs too desperately even when his brain knows these dreams aren’t good for him. They’re slowing his process. Ann - the real Ann - said so herself. He can’t move on if he is still focused on the past. On Josh from the past. He has to accept to move on.

Josh is in bed with him now.

Spot a dream: things change without you remembering them changing. People don’t walk, they are just closer. Josh doesn’t move towards and climb into bed with Chris, he is just there. Inches from him.

Chris can’t remember the last time they have been this close.

That’s a lie. He always remembers those times the best.

Josh doesn’t breathe until Chris notices. Spot a dream.

Chris let’s his fingertips brush over Josh’s cheek, down his neck, over his collarbone. Despite it being the middle of the night, the moon and the stars emitting their cool, milky light, Josh’s skin is sunwarm.

“I don’t want you to go.”

After all these months, Josh’s pulse feels all too familiar, Chris’ fingers recognizing the rhythm instantly. Except, they are not. He is making all of this up.

“You do, though. You’ve always been a terrible liar. And you have to as well. To see me again - the real me, I mean, - you have to stop this.”

Josh takes Chris’s hand away from his neck. There is no malice or force in the gesture. Just determination.

“Okay” Chris says but he already misses the feel of Josh. But he is gone. And it feels more permanent than usually. Chris knows this was the last time he would dream of Josh this way. And even though his mind knows that this is a step in the right direction and that Ann will be proud of him in the morning, his heart breaks for having lost his best friend again.

*

Chris has gotten used to feeling miserable.

It didn’t matter what time of day, where about he was or what he was doing. Misery has become his constant companion.  
So when he wakes on a Wednesday to the song of birds and mellow morning light, he feels something is missing. His chest is light, his thoughts are too. The colour of the walls seems less muddy and more vibrant.

Pressing the heel of his hand against his eye, Chris tries to remember his dream. Something about Josh, he decides. Not because he remembers. But they are usually always about him. And they are usually always terrible.

Then why does Chris feel … healthy?

No fatigue, no jittery hands, no clouded mind. Chris doesn’t believe in miracles.

Instead of breakfast, Chris heads towards Dr Ann Murray’s office. She is there, sat behind a large, modern desk with a glass top. The morning sun reaches its orange fingers through the transparent curtains behind her, rendering her sandy complexion a beautiful tint of gold. Something in Chris’ mind is startled by the image.

“Chris! What can I do for you?” she asks, setting her pencil down. Despite the early hours, her hair is made and her make up flawless. How many hours did she have to be awake for already?

“I think my sadness is gone.” It sounds childish. When Chris first met Ann, he thought she reminded him of Sam. He had long since decided that instead she reminds him more of the twins. She is smart and kind and understanding. The difference is, where Sam would be stubborn, the twins would be forgiving. Ann is the forgiving kind. Her power lies in understanding not in making herself understood.

“People get used to the strangest of things” Ann says, dipping her head. She is thinking. Testing her words. Testing the water. Chris stands in her office and wonders what she must think of him.

“And that is not a bad thing at all. It just makes it more bearable for us. To move on.”

“It’s not gone?”

Ann shakes her head, just the tiniest bit. Chris shoulders slouch, just the tiniest bit.

“It’s just … muffled. Giving you the opportunity to see past it. To work on what lies behind all of this.”

Chris feels a stray tear find its way down his chin and onto his throat. There's more missing from him than the misery. What is left of him, without this depression?

“Chris, let’s talk about what happened on the mountain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last time i asked if you wanted longer chapters, i hope this is a start :~)  
> please leave a comment if you can!!


	17. The Becoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> hallucinations (wow big news!!)  
> strong language

The first person to visit is strangely Mike.

Tall. Handsome. Nervous.

Chris feels weirdly inadequate in his light blue institute wear. He’s thrown on a jacket but it doesn’t help with the obviousness of “hey, i’m a mental patient”.

“Hi” Chris says. They meet outside the building. Dave is only down the line a few steps, talking to some other nurse. But Chris knows he’s here to watch him. Chris didn’t think he would mind. Now he does.

Mike looks otherwordly. In his leather jacket and worn jeans and scruff he could have been the protagonist of some video game not visiting a mental health hospital. He looks out of place in the soft, green gardens in front of the ancient building basically radiating with calm. Mike seems to radiate something else entirely.

“You look great” Mike says.

“Thanks?” Chris doesn’t blush. Mike does.

“No, I mean, like … healthy. Last time I saw you, you … y'know …” He makes a vague gesture, something between a shrug and putting your arms up in defence. Mike looks incredibly sorry.

Now Chris blushes. “Please stop talking.”

Mike puffs out a relieved breath. “Oh thank God.” They laugh. Chris catches Dave nodding to himself. For some reason, Chris feels slightly proud of himself. There is something left of him and for some reason, Mike seems to draw out the pieces buried in the darkness.

*

Chris led Mike around the building and down a trail of beige brick half hidden in tall blue grass and moss and to a circle of benches just by the edge of the forest. Sitting there, Chris has spent hours watching the other patients outside the building, listened to the birds, focused on the feeling of his hands on the lichen-covered wood of the bench and his breathing pattern. Generally, Chris comes here to relax.

“We drew matches” Mike says, hopping grandly onto the bench next to Chris, a useless but very Mike-like display of agility. Chris smiles at the familiarity.

“I mean, everyone wanted to visit you but we couldn’t very well storm in, the lot of us. So we had to draw matches because everyone wanted to be the first.”

Chris blushes. Only now he realizes, that he never really believed that the others would notice his absence, let alone miss and want to see him. It warmed him more than the mid-summer sun.

“Ashley’s next, then Matt and then Sam and then Jess and last but definitely not least, Emily.”

Chris only half listens, still too high on the feeling of being worth his friends' missing. His heart flutters.

“... couldn't believe it when they found her. But enough of me. How're you. How's this place treatin' you.”

“Ann, one of the doctors working here, asked me about the mountain” Chris hears himself say. It's been bugging him ever since that morning. It is Friday now. He has made a great deal of avoiding Ann over the past two days, too afraid of finding out how much exactly she knows.

“So... that's good, right? You're already talking 'bout the real stuff. Took me like two months with Dr Malory to even mention anything about Josh. And I mean, the Wendigos isn't even an option. I usually just say 'inner demons' when I'm referring to those fuckers.”

Chris doesn't want to be annoyed with Mike, tall, handsome, caring Mike, but he is. Suddenly, he feels done with the visit. He wants Mike to leave.

“Yeah. Whatever. I don't think I can tell her anything. Talking about curses and beheadings probably won't be my ticket out of here.”

Mike seems startled. The summer warm wind rustles the leaves above head and Chris wishes that it could blow away his sudden annoyance and Mike's obvious shame. Mike realizes something that Chris doesn't. Or maybe he doesn't want to.

“I'm sorry” he says. They sit in silence for a few minutes, letting the sun sink in the sky and the nature group return from their evening walk in the gardens, hands full of bright flowers and their cheeks red with excitement. From afar, they look small, like kids. Chris used to go on walks with his friends when they were little. The forest that is vast by the city. The stream. Josh showed him how to skip stones one evening, when the sun hang low and the mosquitos whirred by. He stood behind Chris, hand on his hand, guiding his arm through the air. When he concentrates, he can hear the sound of Josh's breathing behind him, still. It was a summer's day just like this one...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> q: who do you think mike was talking about?????
> 
> also surprise mid-week update because i'm getting many many comments (for me, at least) and it's making me very very happy and i wanted to throw you a bone :~) (hinthint)
> 
> EDIT: i'm actually at camp on saturday so update will be on sunday sorry sorry


	18. The Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> hallucinations  
> panic attack

“What do you know about the mountain.”

Chris isn't one to confront people. He is always in the defence, not the offence. He is always nice and smart and figuring a way around confrontation. But right now, Chris is confronting Ann, invading her office with his questions pre-phrased and his answers practiced. 

And Ann is taken aback, accordingly. 

“Chris. You've been avoiding me” she says. She isn't trying to make him feel guilty.

“I was scared” Chris says. He doesn't feel guilty.

“That's a good thing to admit. I was scared too. I thought you avoided me because you didn't want to continue therapy with me.”

Chris loves that about Ann. She doesn't hop from topic to topic like Dr Mellows used to. She lingers. She elaborates. She relates. He doesn't want to confront her.  
“I didn't. But I have to. And I must know why you brought up the mountain.”

Ann takes off her wireframes. Chris hasn't noticed she wore glasses. Maybe she doesn't and she wears contacts. She didn't know he would storm into her office like that. 

“Mrs Washington called me. Your friend Samantha told her you were here and she gave me a rundown on why you might be here and what you might not want to necessarily talk about.”

Now Chris is the one taken aback. 

Sam went straight to Mrs Washington with the news of Chris going crazy and then Mrs Washington called his therapist to tell her the why's and when's and now Ann thinks Chris is completely beyond saving. How much does she know. How much does Mrs Washington know? Probably more than she lets show. Her son might be a Wendigo. Oh God, what if Josh is a Wendigo and this is Ann telling Chris how he can never see his best friend ever again!

“Chris? Calm down, breathe.” He doesn't feel Ann's hands on his arms as she guides him to a chair and lowers him onto it. His body feels numb.

“Chris, you're having an anxiety attack. But that's okay. Just breathe with me and we'll get through it. In. Out.”

Chris is levitating. No, he's not, he's just not feeling his body or the ground beneath his feet. His head is light as a breeze and just as knowledgeable. No thought crosses his mind. He can only observe. How Ann squeezes his arm, how Ann shakes her head, how Ann moves her mouth. He doesn't register the words, at first but then he does. It's like when they went swimming during climbing class and he would dive for as long as he could and all the sounds were muffled and far away. But when he burst through the surface, filling his lungs with fresh air, suddenly the world seemed to continue spinning and words made sense again, much louder and cleared than before.

Chris starts toward the surface.

“Christopher. Focus on my voice. Can you do that? Can you hear what I am saying?”

He nods. Maybe. Possibly.

“Okay. Then breathe with me. Slower. Slower. Yeah, that's right. That's great. You're doing incredible.”

Chris can feel the warm indoor pool air against the top of his head.

“Amazing. Now open your eyes, Chris. You can do it!”

Chris fills his lungs with air. There's Josh by the side of the pool, laughing, and water in his eyes.

“I'm back” Chris says. He's stopped levitating. No longer swimming.

“I can see that. What happened, Chris? Was it something I said?” Ann inquires. Her head is cocked slightly and she looks exhausted. Maybe because it's too early for panicky mentally ill teens.

“No it's... I just had a really bad thought, that's all. Mrs Washington didn't … she didn't happen to mention her son? And if he was okay?”

“She doesn't tell you?”

Chris furrows his brows. For the most part of his last few weeks, he's been angry at Mrs Washington. She basically raised him when his own mother … and still she chose to leave him in the dark about Josh. His best friend.

Maybe it's therapy, maybe it's giving up, maybe it's giving in. But Chris feels like he understands now. And he feels stupid that he hasn't before.

It's simple, really. Obvious. But selfishness and stubbornness built walls around him, locking him in his screwed up version that Mrs Washington does not want him to see Josh because he isn't good for him.

“She is protecting us” Chris exclaims, naturally. “Josh needs to recover and so do I. We can't … there's no room for the other in our lives right now. We need to concentrate. We can't help each other unless we help ourselves first.”

Ann moves, just slightly. Her eyes are wide in fascination and there's something like pride in them. It doesn't matter whether she is proud of Chris or proud of having such a breakthrough with a patient. Chris feels tired. 

But he is ready. Every fibre of his body, screaming at him. He needs to do this. The dark part of his brain pulses. His heart thrums in response. He is ready.

“Ann, I want you to help me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the delay, i was at camp since friday!!  
> things are going to move a lot faster for a bit because we're leaving the Lakeview Mental Institute quite soon. Is that a good or a bad idea?? only time will tell


	19. Braving it all for You

Chris has been good. He has been going to therapy, both art and talk, he has been answering and returning calls and has been getting and enjoying visits from his friends. Even Mrs Washington visits, once, for a few hours. They sit in one of the rooms for visitors, littered with couches in friendly, muted colours and with windows that are tall and look out into the gardens.

On the anniversary, Chris isn't good. He yells and screams and throws his meds, he kicks Dave in the head and has to be strapped down for 29 hours until he calms. The room for people that flip is small and rectangular, a single bed with leather straps to tie down patients, no windows and cameras in the corners of the room.

10 months after his self-admission to the Mental Health Institute, Chris checks himself out, on Ann's recommendation.

“You need to get back out there” she tells him. He's grown so used to her voice that she's in his dreams all the time. She's become a voice of reason in them, recounting hints to spot dream from reality, damasking the Wendigos as shadows and trees, keeping the misery and hopelessness away with kind words of logic. While her voice became louder, Chris has started forgetting what Josh's voice sounds like.

“The world misses you, Chris.”

So he shoulders his backpack, waves goodbye and gets into Sam's car. It's March, snow accumulating to brown patches at the sides of roads, making way for green and growth.

They make their way down the streets, glistening wet in the early morning sunlight piercing through white clouds. They pass trees, still naked, and fields, still white with frost but the idea of spring is starting to solidify itself.

“It's kinda metaphorical, you know?” says Sam, over some acoustic song on the radio. A woman singing about losing her boyfriend but finding it to actually be better that way.

“Spring, a fresh start for the environment, a fresh start for you?” she eyes him. Chris has his head agains the window on the passenger's side, his fingers lazily tracing patterns on his legs.

“Yeah, I actually just wanted to get out early enough to apply to summer semester at uni, but I like your approach as well.”

“You look great, by the way.”

He does. His skin isn't white as paper and his veins aren't stark underneath. The bags under his eyes are gone. He can sleep without dreaming, now. Chris feels healthier than he has felt in years.

The darkness in his mind is a light shade of grey instead of an all-consuming black.

“You don't look so bad yourself.”

“Thanks, but I'm a lesbian, so -” Sam laughs and Chris grins, effortlessly.

They enter their city twenty minutes later, Sam has changed the acoustic to early 2000 pop songs and is yelling along to the songs like she used to many summers ago. Chris isn't the only one to have changed within the past year.

They stop at his apartment.

“We all took turns to keep your place intact while you were gone” Sam explains, getting out of the car and taking Chris' suitcase with her, chattering cheerfully.

“You know, I thought we should have a get together, the whole gang, next weekend. Emily moved in with Matt and Jess a few weeks ago so they have a lot of space, now. I think it would be nice to have the whole team back in the same room, for a change.”

He lets her ramble on. He enjoys the sound of her voice, happy and making plans. But his heart pounds heavily when he reaches the top of the stairs and takes out the keys to his flat. He hesitates.

“Sam, maybe … do you wanna stay over tonight? I don't know, it's been a while since I've been in this flat and I kinda need to get used to it, I feel like and -”

But Sam, he realizes, is already halfway down the flight of stairs. She grins, her eyes sparkle. The sun through the milky glass over the door reflects off them, two bright, happy orbs.

“I don't think that'll be necessary” she smiles. Panic knocks on a door in Chris' mind. He chooses to ignore it. Ann would have been proud of that move.

“You know I hate surprises” Chris probes. 

Sam chuckles, shaking her head. “Not this one, trust me.”

With that she's out the front door and Chris is alone in the airy staircase, in front of the white door leading to his flat, to his new-old flat.

And he turns the key.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was v short i could've gone on about chris at the mental institute for ages tbh but it would've become a little repetitive over time. just let this short overview be enough and now let's begin a new part of chris' life


	20. Josh Washington

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally

The door creaks when Chris pushes it open, a sound so familiar, even after months of not hearing it. Inside, the smell of dust greets him, small specks of it dancing in the air. His shoes and jackets are orderly hanged and stacked by the wall. Sam meant it when she said they have kept things neat for him to return to.

Well practised, Chris shuts the door while simultaneously kicking his shoes off. It feels good to be home. He carries his backpack over one shoulder and his suitcase in the other hand and steps into the area with his kitchen and table. The table isn't stacked with magazines and notebooks like he left it. It's cleaned and he places his backpack cautiously on it. He draws open the curtains, letting the sun flood into the apartment. His apartment. 

A movement in the corner of his eye. Chris freezes in place, hands balled to fists in the soft fabric of the curtain. Panic threatens to overtake.

It's a shadow in the living room, dark with closed curtains. Someone – or something – is sat on Chris' sofa. 

“It's not real, it's not real, it's almost time to take your meds, Chris, calm down. It's just because you're back here now. You're safe” he whispers to himself, releasing his cramping hands from the curtains. He takes a moment to breathe, concentrating on the air flowing in and out of his lungs before he turns around. 

The shadow hasn't disappeared. Only now, it looks more and more like a person. A silhouette in Chris' living room. 

“Is this real?” Chris' voice is shaky, but not fearful. He knows the answer. The meds work. Things he sees now, are always real. Nervousness makes his heart skip a beat.

Slowly, the person moves, stands up. The figure turns, facing Chris in the dim light. Its features are shadowy and the colours smudged but Chris would have recognized them in the black of night and in the white blinding day. He would recognize them always, memorised. The dark hair, the soft copper of skin, the green of his eyes.

Even in the blurriness, Josh Washington is unmistakably real. So real, so vibrant, only a few feet away from Chris. Josh takes a step forward, light falling over him, sharply illuminating him, turning shadow into sunlight.

And he is smiling. Oh God, he is smiling. 

Chris has always been a little in love with Josh's smile.

“Good to see you, Cochise.”

*

Chris has imagined their reunion more times than he's had nightmares about them. He visualised a magically cured Josh, healthy and normal and himself, stable and happy. In his daydreams they hug and tell each other how sorry they are and that they forgive the other. Of course, Chris has always known it wouldn't go like that. Of course, he knew it would be different. He didn't think it would be this.

Josh is looking at him, now seeming irritated. “You okay?” he asks. Chris can only stare.

Josh's thin. He's never been big but he looks much smaller than he used to. His cheeks are hollow and his eyes are bloodshot with dark bruises underneath. The black hair on his head is longer than it used to be and dull, not shiny. His clothes sag and there's a white plaster covering the left half of his face, from the corner of his mouth, over his cheek up to his eye. And that eye. The tint of green is not quite right.

“I just … “ Chris trails off. His head is frantically trying to work out how to handle the situation. Sam knew of this, it might have even been her plan. Meaning, she has been reunited with Josh already. Maybe even for a while. What about the rest of them? Was Chris the last one to meet Josh? Why would they have left him in the dark about this? He has grown to expect secrets from Mrs Washington but not from his friends. Not from Sam. How long has Josh been back for everyone but him?

“I need a moment, I – I need to process. This is … “

He falters, sways. Josh is by his side in a split second, steadying him. His hand is warm around his arm. Warm and alive. Chris starts to cry.

He lets Josh lead him over to the sofa, sitting down willingly, sobbing in silence. 

“Fuck” Chris finally exclaims, wiping at his eyes.

“Amen” Josh answers, his voice thick with sadness as well. No, not sadness. Maybe it's happiness. Or relief. Josh is relieved.

They sit for a while, neither saying a word, Chris crying silently, Josh stifling a few sobs. And then they start talking.

It's Chris who asks the first question.

“So, how long have you been back?”

Josh leans to the side, elbow on the armrest. He shrugs. “Like, officially? Four days. Unofficially, two weeks.”

“How can you be back 'unofficially'.”

“When your mom hides you in her house, locks you in your room without telling anyone. Unofficially.” Josh shrugs again. 

And to Chris, he really doesn't seem all that bothered. Maybe, because Josh has always been easy to find excuses for other people's misbehaviour. Chris has always been a little in love with Josh's good heart.

“I've come back five minutes ago” Chris says. “Officially and unofficially. Cause only Sam and you know.”

“Well, I feel honoured” Josh attempts at a joke and Chris attempts at a smile. They're trying. 

“Okay, my turn. Sam filled me in on the basics but … you were at a mental hospital?”

“Eleven months, almost. I'm better now.” Worry creases Josh's face, the plaster on his cheek pulled taut as he purses his lips. He lowers his head, just the tiniest bit. Chris notices.

“Why were you there?” he asks, his voice just the tiniest bit more quiet than before. He attempts to avert his gaze.

Chris doesn't let him break eye contact. Those beautiful, green eyes, radiant, like fresh leaves in early springtime. One more green than the other, now, but no less full of life. Full of soul. Capturing Chris, luring him in. He's always been a little in love with Josh's eyes.

“I didn't deal very well with what happened. The Wendigos. The Stranger. Leaving you behind for … losing you. I didn't let the others help me and they tried. They're good, they tried so hard. But until I was ready, I kept them away. And then I admitted myself to Lakeview and let them tinker with me and they fixed me. Enough for me to come back.”

“That's rough, man” Josh says. Again, relief. But bitter, mixed with guilt. He can probably tell that there's parallels between his own and Chris' stories.

“You know why I finally gave in and got help?” Chris asks. Josh shakes his head.

“Because of you.”

Now Josh starts crying. His face screws up and he covers it with his bony fingers, his shoulders shaking as Chris wraps his arms around them. He holds his hand to the back of Josh's head, cradling it agains his chest. 

“I wanted to see you again. But I wasn't good enough back then. I would have made things worse, I understand that now. I needed to get fixed so I could be good for you again.”

Josh's tears seep through Chris' sweater and shirt. 

“I never wanted to ...” – “I screwed everything up.” – “I fucked us up so bad.”

Chris just holds him. He doesn't want to hear this. It's the same things he's heard himself say mere months ago, tearing at the light within him, ripping him apart from the inside. He doesn't want to hear Josh trying to destroy himself. Never again.

“No, shhh, you didn't do it, you couldn't have known. You were grieving and you were sick and we failed to protect you from it.”

Josh lets out a wretched wail, like a wounded animal. Like something inhumane. For a second, the urge to shove him away and flee flares up inside Chris. Just the fracture of a second.

“It's all right. It's all over.”

Chris hears the sound first before he realizes that Josh has ripped his plaster off. His hand is covering the left half of his face as he draws an unsteady breath.

“It's never over.”

He lets his hand slip away.

The contrast between the white scar tissue the healthy skin is stark. A jagged line from the corner of Josh's mouth upwards, getting thinner and fading just underneath his cheekbone.

In the other direction, the scar widens, ripping open the corner of Josh's mouth a few millimetres too early and a few millimetres too wide. And between the scarred lips, the teeth. Pointed, white, animalistic. Wendigo teeth in the making, made for ripping flesh and breaking bones.

Chris feels ice in his stomach. The world tilts, everything askew. All Chris sees is the teeth, the milky eye, all Chris hears is the wailing, the scream.

His nightmares have come alive.

And then he kisses Josh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, yes this happened!!! ikr????? oh my god!!!
> 
> ((my description of Josh is based loosely on Exor!Josh by danji-doodle on tumblr!! http://danji-doodle.tumblr.com/post/133157007116/exorjosh-master-post ))
> 
> how long have y'all been waiting for this?? was it worth the wait?? did i manage to leave you Shook™??


	21. Chris and Josh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> fluffy, flustered climbing class

Chris has imagined their reunion more times than he's had nightmares, even. He visualised a magically cured Josh, healthy and normal and himself, stable and happy. In his daydreams they hug and tell each other how sorry they are and that they forgive the other. 

Of course, Chris knew it wouldn't go like that. Of course, he knew it would be different. 

He didn't think it would be this.

He didn't think they would cry this much. He didn't think Josh would be so honest. He didn't think he would talk about so many things he hasn't even told Ann. Or admitted to himself.

And he didn't think he would kiss Josh Washington. And that Josh Washington would kiss him back.

They break apart, both gasping for air. Their eyes are locked in the half-dark. Blue against green against blue against green.

“Okay” Josh breathed. 

“Okay? That's what you choose to say after our first kiss, 'okay'?”

Josh backs away, laughter erupting from him where minutes prior crying lived. 

“I'm sorry, it's just not what I had expected when I came here today, that's all.” 

He is still laughing, that rasping, pure sound that made so many of Chris' best memories. Summers at the lake. Afternoons in their tree house. School recess in the playground. He's always been a little in love with Josh's laugh.

“What, did you think those were gonna scare me off?” Chris says, straightening his glasses with his index and middle finger while pointing at Josh's ruined lips and sharp handful of teeth peeking out with the other hand.

Self-consciously, Josh covers them with a hand. “I tried, didn't I? Scaring you off.”

Chris shrugs. “Takes a lot more to get me away from you.”

“I'm not all right, Chris” Josh says, all traces of laughter dried out. There's a serious air to how he straightens his shoulders in his too-big sweatshirt. “I'm still … in therapy. Kinda. Well, therapy meets The Exorcist, really. Point is, I'm not done and I won't ever be or … or look the same as before the incident.”

“I'm also still in therapy.”

“It's different.”

“Only if you make it different.”

Josh turns his head away in frustration, leaving Chris to look at the unscarred half of his face. The half that looks like Sam's last-summer-smile. Out of its time. Not quite right. Not the Josh that it used to be. Not the Josh that is.

And to Chris, that's okay. 

Gently, Chris puts his hand on top of Josh's, turning his head back. He intertwines their fingers and lowers their hands, revealing the rest of Josh's face. His eyes like two emeralds, glistening with tears. The scar a river, running down from them, pouring into the lake that is his lips. 

Chris can't help his hungry eyes to wander, to take in what the had missed for months.

Josh Washington. Conflicted. Perfect. Broken. Whole. 

Chris has always been a little in love with Josh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as you may or may not have noticed, two things are different about this update
> 
> 1: it's not saturday and  
> 2: slightly less easy to spot, i've changed the chapter number because
> 
> yes, friends, i have officially finished this fanfiction. it's done. i've written the last words for it and it's all saved and just waiting for y'all to read. which is why i've decided on giving you a celebratory mid-week update, yay!
> 
> kudos & comments are as always greatly appreciated!!


	22. Josh and Chris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> mentioned suicide  
> mentioned/implied mental health issues

Over a decade ago, when Chris was just nine and chubby faced and didn't have a care in the world, his mother decided to end her life. One lonely night in September, she took a handful of sleeping pills and her young son had to wake up to her cold body in an empty house.

Josh despises her for this. He knows it wasn't her decision, it was the illness, but he still can't stop himself from dreaming of the morning after when Chris didn't come to school and he found the young boy curled up against the body of his mother, a shell of a human being. 

A mere child. Dead already. Josh has always been a little in love with Chris' brokenness.

Chris never talks about it anymore. He used to, when he was younger, always to him, to Josh. Chris lived with his grandma but also with the Washington's and he grew up to be so much stronger than he should have. So much more courageous. And kind. And always trying to teach Josh the same courage and the same kindness. To give him a piece of his armoured heart that should have been stone instead. Josh has always been a little in love with Chris' bravery.

Once, when they were much younger and much different, Chris made Josh swear that they would always be there for each other. It was a humid summer's eve, cicadas chirping, mosquitos bothering, wind whisking. And the two boys pinky promised to always have each other's back, there by the lake in late July. He has always been a little in love with Chris' optimism.

Now, Josh thinks of that promise as he kisses Chris again. He thinks of it all and puts as much into the action as he dares. He thinks of that summer day and of Chris, a few tragedies ahead of him. Now they're even. They even each other out. Josh has always been a little in love with Chris. 

There it is, all the sadness, all the guilt. All the pining and longing. Everything he's tried so desperately to leave behind. And, surprisingly, he is met with no less heat than he has himself. Two suns, colliding, exploding, blinding. 

It melts away all the sorrow and the fear and everything until Josh is left with only Chris and the moment and their lips together and for a long time, Josh hasn't felt this at ease. 

It is just them. Chris and Josh. Josh and Chris. Just them, as it should be.

Josh breaks away when his wristwatch starts beeping. Just inches from the other's face and he is smiling. How long has it been since he has last smiled an actual genuine smile. 

It could have been awkward. There could have been a weird silence between them, both flushed and mumbling around. But they aren't 15 anymore, fooling around after an all-nighter playing video games. 

Chris is looking at him, in the dim light, his glasses askew and his brows furrowed and Josh is in love with him. 

“I need to get home” he whispers, only a few inches between them as his watch beeps again. “Mum's probably waiting outside already. Wonder why she hasn't broken the door down already.”

Actually, his mother had to promise him to stay in the car until the third alarm and then come up to the apartment. It was his condition. Hers was, that he would only get three alarms time.

“Yeah” Chris says but he looks everything but ready to let the moment go and even more so, to let Josh go. 

And honestly, neither is Josh. But he gets up from the couch anyway, engulfed by the fake twilight caused by the still closed curtains. He hears Chris get up after him, the couch groaning in protest. 

Josh closes his eyes. 

How many times has his mind played tricks like this on him before? How many times has a pretend-Chris been there, close enough to touch, only to turn into dust and ashes the minute Josh tried to reach for him? Even on the mountain, Josh's mind has always been the most cruel thing.

But when he turns his head, Chris is there. This is real. And reality, a feeble thing, has been rare for Josh. But he feels it, with overwhelming ferocity, Josh is certain that this, Chris, him, is the realest thing that's happened in over two years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we've changed POV, y'all!!!! this is gonna happen a lil more often, now that joshy boy's finally here (lmao you ever read a couple fic where one part of the otp wasn't introduced until chapter 20 i am such a bad writer lol)


	23. Headspin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> amnesia

Chris calls the next day. Melinda tells him that Josh is still in therapy for the morning and that he's been bad that night. Nightmares. Visions. No one can see him for a little while. Chris' heart breaks.

“Tell him I said hi, will you?” he asks.

“Oh, sure, honey. I just … yeah, sure, I will. I'll call you when he's ready.”

The unfairness of it is bitter on Chris' tongue. He can't stomach the situation. What kind of cruelty, to reunite only to be torn apart a heartbeat later. 

Small lights flare up before his eyes. He's been pressing his balled fists against them, hard. When did he start doing that? He stops, his hands falling to his sides. The digital time on his phone display announces midday. 

He called when it was 9am.

*

“Time is slipping again” Chris says. It is the first time with his new therapist, one that Ann has chosen for him. 

Agatha is an old woman, skin like rich earth and eyes like pools of ocean water. He hair is a grey cloud but despite her stormy appearance, she seems soft and mellow. She is a good listener and Chris has a lot of things to say.

“It hasn't for … a while now. A few weeks, a month, maybe more. I don't know. But like … I'm missing this whole morning. I don't even remember driving here. I hate this.” 

“Did something happen?” she asks, leaning forward on her chair. There's a handful of mismatched chairs in her small office, no couches. No decorations, either, apart from her degree and an antique looking desk with a vase filled with dry flowers. It reminds Chris of his grandmother's home.

“Sometimes, stress can trigger a mental illness to flare up.”

“Can worry?” Chris asks.

Agatha folds her hands in her lap, looking at him, wise, tranquil oceans trying to calm his own. “Yes, of course. Worry is also a form of stress. What do you worry about, Chris?”

“My … friend.” Chris averts his eyes. The storm within them rages on. “He's sick, like, really really sick. He's been better and we've been … together but now he's bad again and I don't know how to help him. And I really wanna see him again but I can't.”

“Josh” Agatha repeats. Momentarily, Chris forgot that she knows everything Ann knows. Weeks ago, that thought would have upset or even frightened him. Now, his only thought is that it makes things a lot easier, not having to start from the beginning. He didn't know if he could even have mustered enough strength to do so.

“Yes. Him. I'm worried about him.”

“Says here, you always worry about him” the woman counters and Chris can't help himself but grin.

“I just mean, what is different this time?”

Agatha looks at him and he looks back. His heart is beating in his chest, embarrassed.

“It's because I'm in love with him.”

To his surprise, Agatha just nods. Maybe she can see far more with her ocean eyes than Chris first suspected.

“That, of course, changes things. Your body is in a constant state of stress, boy. Your hormones are off the scale and might even interfere with the medication. I'm going to make an appointment for you for a check up, later this week. But apart from that, how are you feeling?”

A shy grin turns into a shy smile as Chris answers: “I told you already. I am in love with Josh Washintgon. What more is there?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: ye i will post longer chapters  
> me: *posts this 200 words chapter* yeah that'll do
> 
> Title based on Lethargy by Bastille


	24. Happiness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> surreality  
> hallucinations  
> paranoia

Chris has always been the sickly one. He is the one that catches the flu twice in a row. He is the one that breaks his leg jumping from the swings. He is the one with allergies that fill up pages and pages. He is the one with a sick mind. Now, he can apparently add lovesickness to that list. 

The days stretch endlessly, like the gum he used to love as a kid. Strawberry flavoured day viscously merging into the next. After unpacking his bags, calling his friends, running errands and cleaning dust Chris is bored. And worried. And lovesick.

“She won't even tell me if he's alright” Chris says.

“Listen, Melinda has a lot of things on her mind, priority being her own fucking son okay.”

“You're in a cheerful mood” he mocks, hearing Sam's exasperated sigh on the other side of the line.

“You try working at McDonald's for five hours straight only to come home to two missed calls from you! Shit, I thought something really, really terrible must've happened when Mr I-don't-know-how-to-return-calls actually is the one to call first!”

Guilt washes Chris' grin away. “Sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't think I-”

“Relax, okay. It's not you I'm angry at – for once – I'm just really overworked, is all.” He voice is low and tired which doesn't help with Chris feeling guilty. “But listen, okay, Josh's gonna be fine. He's been more or less fine when you didn't see him for months, he'll survive a few days without you.”

Chris listens, soaking in the words like dried out earth after rain. He tries to believe them. He really does.

“Thanks, Sam. I don't know, I was just kinda freaking out, you know?”

“Yeah. It's okay. You just got him back – we all did. Hey, maybe we can hang out later, get the gang together.”

“Sounds like fun” Chris lies.

“Yeah, it will be” Sam says.

*

His phone is on silent, a mode it must have gotten used to by now. Its cracked screen lights from the floor by the passenger's seat in Chris car', ignored and neglected. Three missed calls. Twelve text messages.

The boy is driving down the all too familiar way to the Washington's. 

It's not paranoia, he tells himself, over and over again. 

Paranoid.

Something's off. I gotta check on Josh. Something is not right or else he would text me back. Something horrible, terrible has happened. I need to know he's okay. He's okay. He's not okay.

He passes through the forest, soft, fresh green rushing by, young leaves unfolding in the sweet spring air. To Chris, it is grey compared to the richness of Josh's green eyes. 

Everything slips.

Suddenly, the world stops to make sense. Everything falls apart and Chris right alongside.

“Stop the car.”

Panic and fear and confusion the only instincts, Chris jerks the steering wheel, pressing down on the breaks, sending the car into a spiralling motion. Green eyes and green leaves a tornado around him as the car spins and Chris screams. This is it. This is how he dies. This is-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the two last chapters were the shortest Ever which is why i'll give you a midweek update again (if i don't forget it)
> 
> comment below if you think you know the title of the next chapter :~D


	25. Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> surreality  
> mentioned death  
> mentioned suicide

Blinding white light floods his senses. The silence weighs on his chest as he breathes in the smell of burning rubber and rotting leaves. 

Then pain shoots through his body, from his neck up to his head, pooling into his brain and drowning it. Chris tries to yell, but his body does not obey him. Where he tries to command it, it throws pain and inability back at him. He can't even manage to get his eyes to open. And that pain. 

The blackness and unawareness of being unconscious is welcome.

When Chris dares to open his eyes, he sees blood. Then, his eyes focus and the blood turns rectangular and then it is a firetruck.

“Help me” Chris whispers, weakly. What happened? Where was he? He could only register fragments, like the shattered phone, pieces missing, a picture incomplete.

There's a voice somewhere, speaking to him, calmly. Angrily. Imaginary.

There are sirens, no, Wendigo screams, no, sirens. 

The man that's speaking to him is Dave. No, it's the stranger, his throat cut open. No, it's a firefighter. 

Chris wants to die.

“Can you hear me, boy?”

His grandmother used to call him 'boy'. He hasn't visited her grave in many months. No one would tend to it, if he died now.

“We're going to take you to the hospital. Do you understand?”

Chris, despite pain flaring up at the sudden movement, nods. Hopefully, he does. What is reality to a boy like him, anyway? Chris thinks about the possibility of death as he blacks out again.

*

When he wakes again, it is from the unmistakable sound of a hospital. Muffled voices, far off yelling, beeping machinery.

Chris grew up with those kinds of noises almost as much as the sounds of his grandmother's or the Washington's. 

His three homes.

A few minutes pass before Chris is in control enough to force his eyes open. The light is not as brutal as the one before. It is blue and white and dimmed. Chris can see a chair, when he moves his head to the right. There is an ache in his neck, muffled, like the lights.

Josh is sitting in the chair, watching him. “What the fuck do you think you're doing.”

The words are said calmly, slowly. There is no trace of malice in them. No sadness, no anger, no nothing. The absence of emotion frightens Chris.

What do you mean? he wants to ask. His mouth does not obey him just yet. 

Josh stares at him, intently. His hands are folded in front of his mouth, elbows on his knees. Chris notices, that Josh is wearing a plaster again, covering half of his face. White against bronze. The fact that Chris doesn't answer, seems to take a little bit of the calculated disinterest off of Josh. His face softens just a smidgen.

“Did you … try to kill yourself?”

The strain from shaking his head makes Chris' vision blur.

Now Josh's carefully constructed facade crumbles completely. He lets his hands fall and his head goes with them. He looks defeated. 

“Shit, bro” Josh exclaims, face toward the grey linoleum floor. Chris thinks he might be crying.

“They all said that you did, while you were out. That you tried to crash your car and die. I had to ask.”

I understand. Words don't work for Chris. Instead, he blinks. His eyes sting with tears, the pain from his injuries nothing compared to the pain he feels, seeing Josh like this. A king, brought to his knees.

“Doctors say you're gonna be fine again, you know? Few broken bones and a mild concussion.”

Chris is made of glass shards and duct tape, barely held together. He can never be fine again.

Tired, Chris turns his head back to look at the ceiling. Slipping into morphine endorsed sleep, Josh may or may not have taken his hand in his. This is as fine as it gets, Chris thinks and then he's asleep.


	26. Overture

“How we need another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm. To rest and trust; to give your soul in confidence: I need this, I need someone to pour myself into.”

Sylvia Plath


	27. Act I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> mentioned suicide attempt  
> surreality  
> hallucinations

Forgiveness is a privilege, Chris has been told.

Trust, he finds, is a privilege as well.

They release Chris after five days with a cast on his left arm and bruises on his chest and a notice to double the sittings with his therapist.

Only Josh believes him. Josh forgives him.

“My mum said you can come over today. She's been avoiding this, you know. But I told her I'm gonna be okay. That it's good for me.”

Chris has the phone pressed to his ear with his shoulder, as he fiddles with the car keys, instinctively. Then he lets them down again. His car, a mangled mess from being driven into a tree, is still gone. Acid bubbles in his stomach.

“I'm not going to ask Sam.”

On the other end of the line, Josh sighs dramatically. Chris can hear his bed squeak as he moves. 

“Sure you are. She can't keep up this grudge, bro. It's been two weeks.”

“She thinks I tried to kill myself” Chris says, grimly. 

“Yeah, whatever, she's wrong.”

Two weeks, and the real reason as to why Chris lost control over his car is a well kept secret, still. He keeps it locked up in the darker parts of his mind, pressing it down, keeping it from resurfacing. Keeping him from resurfacing. How could he have lost a grip on reality that easily? It hasn't happened in over six months. Not since the anniversary.

“Besides, I wanna hang out with the both of you, for a change. Like in the good old days, you feel?”

Chris doesn't answer. The sour taste won't leave his mouth. He knows that Josh is trying to help him. But help has always been hard for him to accept. It feels too much like pity. The last thing Chris wants, is to be pitied.

“So, I take your silence as a yes?”

“You're unbelievable.”

“Thanks, Cochise.”

*

Chris prefers texting over phone calls. Texting gives you control, gives you space. Texting, Chris can pretend. 

So he texts Sam. Sam calls him. Typical.

“I want to hear you say it, first.”

She sounds angry. Phone calls are too delicate for Chris to handle. Face to face, you can express yourself. Over text, you keep anonymity. Phone calls, you are giving up every protection.

“I didn't try to kill myself.” Chris sounds like a broken record. 

“I didn't mean that.”

Suddenly, Chris is annoyed. Or maybe it isn't so sudden, just the outburst of it. He is shaking with it.

“I am so over this.”

“What?” Enraged. Scandalised. 

“I am done. I won't apologize anymore, I won't let you patronize me and I won't let you guilt trip me into saying things you want to hear. Okay? I'm done lying to everyone and I'm done with this.”

Silence. For a split second, Chris wonders if he is actually really talking to Sam. Reality, slipping away like sand through his fingers. Going. Going. Is he talking to Josh? No, Sam. Definitely Sam. He has the phone in his hand. Sam? Going.

“Shit.” Sam is crying. Her sobs are distorted through the line, distorted through the ripples of reality. It breaks his heart to hear her. Why is he causing so much pain to his friends. He never wanted any of this. He just wants them all to be okay. He breaks. Everything breaks.

Going.

“Apologize to her.”

Going.

“You're not real.”

Going.

“Chris, what do you mean? Who is not real?”

Going.

“Don't listen to her!”

Going.

“Leave me alone!”

Going.

“Chris, you're scaring me!”

Gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just when you thought he was starting to get better amiright


	28. Intermission

“And I am low and unwell  
This is love, this is hell  
This sweet plague that follows me

And my body's weak  
Feel my heart giving up on me  
I'm worried it might just be  
And my body's weak  
Feel my lungs giving up on me  
I'm worried it might just be  
Something my soul needs  
Something my soul needs”

Keaton Henson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're nearing the end of this fic!!


	29. Act II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for  
> mental health issues  
> amnesia

Josh worries. He worries about his mother and his friends and himself and the future. He worries about the past and he worries about everything in between. 

But lately, he's been worrying a lot about Chris. 

He's heard from his mother who knows from a friend whose husband works at the police station that they have been at Chris' a few days ago. He was having a fit or a breakdown or something and they had to handcuff him and call his psychiatrist and that it was all very scary and very sad. Josh worries that Chris will have to go back to the Mental Institute. He worries he has to lose him. Again.

He texts Chris whenever he can and he gets replies but none of them address the incident. And Josh worries. According to his mother's friend's husband, Chris has some sort of amnesia thing going on because when he snapped out of his breakdown, he was utterly confused as to what had happened and why he was handcuffed with police crowding his small apartment.

Josh worries that Chris won't go back to the Mental Institute.

He wears down his mother that she drive him to his friend's in the city. She insists on waiting in the car and he agrees.

*

“We gotta talk, Chris. Like, face-to-face talk. 'm tired of you hiding behind text messages.”

Josh has flopped down on the couch, looking at Chris still stood there. It's a golden day, sunlight filtering through the windows and kids laughing outside.

“I'm not hiding” Chris says, boldly. He follows suit, sitting down on the far end of the couch. His movements look awkward and stiff and it worries Josh.

“Yeah, whatever. Wanted to see you, anyways.” 

Unconsciously, he lightly picks at the plaster still covering the messed up half of his face. He's just been to the exorcist this morning and he assured him over and over that his possession is fully gone and that his eye and teeth would get back to normal most likely. Still, he feels self-conscious about the stark reminder of the Wendigo spirit that had tried to inhabit his body. That he almost let.

But this isn't about him, he tells himself, letting go of the thoughts that have started to form in his brain. He focuses on Chris.

“In the hospital, do you remember what you told me?”

Chris looks down to his cast, a still reminder of his accident. Josh isn't sure whether it's out of shame because he does or because he doesn't.

“You told me, you wanted to get better. You told me, you wanted to try and actually do it and that you didn't want to hide anything anymore.”

Josh lets concern lace through his words, thickly, trying to get to Chris that way. It used to work, when they were younger. Chris couldn't hide from Josh very long and neither could he. They were too dependant on each other. Josh hopes things are that way even now.

“You're in denial, Cochise. And believe me when I say, that's the unhealthiest way. Been there. You gotta accept, like, really accept that you're not gonna be 100% any time soon and that there's gonna be times where you'll wanna give up and that it's hard. It is fucking hard, man. But I'll be there, all the way, right beside you. I don't care if you want that right now, I didn't take your offer when I was hurting and I regret it to this day and I won't leave-”

Josh is taken by surprise when Chris kisses him. It's not like the first time. It's rough, the way Chris crashes against him, tidal waves pulling hungrily at the shore. There's heat in the way Chris leans forward and Josh is almost unable to break away.

He pushes Chris away with his hand, looking at him.

“What're you doing?” he gasps.

Now hesitant, startled by Josh's reaction, Chris retreats even further, blushing. It is hard to believe that this boy was so bold mere heartbeats ago.

“I just … I was … We've kissed before and I thought …”

“That was different. Cochise … I don't want this to be like this” Josh stammers, unsure how to word the feelings that clog up his head. Of course he wants Chris. He's wanted him for as long as he can remember. But he doesn't want this.

It is Chris turn, now, to be confused. “Want what to be like what?” he asks, an annoyed edge to his voice were softness usually is.

“Us, Cochise. We haven't … like we didn't really talk about it and now … I just feel weird with you just kissing me like that especially it feeling like a way to change subject.”

“Josh, I swear it wasn't -”

“I know. Shit.” Josh huffs, throwing his head back in desperation. He can feel Chris' eyes on him, unsure, questioning, ashamed. He turns his face to him. Fuck, are those tears?

“You're right” Chris says, annoyance replaced with insecurity. “We need to talk.”

 

*

“Does that happen a lot? Like, the zoning-out-thing?”

Chris is curled up with his knees under his chin. Josh is sitting across from him, handing him a cup of tea. The sun has sunk in the sky and the sounds of children have been replaced by busy cars, getting their drivers home from work. Home to their families.

Josh is eyeing him, closely, as Chris takes a sip of the green tea. Josh's own tea is sitting on the low couch table, untouched.

“Sometimes. Mostly, when I'm stressing over something.”

Chris is looking at him, intently, over the brim of his mug, the steam fogging up his glasses.

“Don't they give you meds so that it doesn't happen?” Josh asks, uncomfortably. He doesn't like openly addressing this but it's what Chris needs. Maybe him, too. 

“Agatha prescribed me some but apparently I'm forgetting to take them as well.”

Too vividly, this reminds Josh of himself. Even though he chose not to take his medication instead of forgetting it, having been misdiagnosed and mistreated didn't help much anyway. 

When he closes his eyes, he can see Dr. Hill and his desk. The man never understood. He never seemed to care. After his rescue and exorcism, Josh told the doctors about Dr. Hill's role during his psychotic episode. No one has told Josh what happened to Dr. Hill afterwards and he doesn't ask. 

“Does Abigail -”

“Agatha” Chris corrects him.

“Does Agatha know about that?”

“I think so, yeah. I told her quite recently, or maybe she found out herself. She was going to research what could help me. I have an appointment this Thursday.”

“Do you … do you think I could come with you? If you want to, I mean” Josh offers, even managing a smile. Chis ponders on this for a while, taking one, two sips of his tea.

“Yeah. I'd like that” he finally says and Josh notices that his shoulders relax. “Can we talk about something else, now?”

Josh hasn't noticed he was holding tension as well until it was washed away with the smile Chris flashes at him. A genuine smile that could burn so bright it would show ships back to the shore safely or lure them out into the sea to drown. Josh decides to get lost a little.

“Like what?” he says, his mind still at sea.

“Like us.” 

“What about us?” Josh asks, his mouth dry. His heart was beating furiously against his ribs, like a trapped bird. He cares so much about Chris. He wants this to work. He really does.

“Everything.”


	30. Act III

Chris doesn't feel like tiptoeing. He's always been frank with Josh when he couldn't with anyone else. He would spill his heart before that boy without a second of doubt. He would follow him anywhere anytime. Chris feels like talking.

“Well?” Josh says, seeming unsure and a little flattered, maybe. Probably. Other than Chris, Josh usually keeps to himself and only talks about things that matter at 3am after a couple of beers and the curtains closed.

“I want to know what we are” Chris says, vaguely gesturing between them, making the space feel so much farther. He doesn't want to fuck up whatever could be becoming of this.

“We're best friends, Cochise” answers the other boy, his gaze rushing around from Chris eyes to his lips to the floor and the ceiling all at once.

“We kissed” Chris says. Josh looks at him. 

“Yeah.”

“What did it mean?”

“I don't know what you want me to say” Josh half-whispers, looking lost in his own words. The sun has almost completely vanished, replaced by eerie blue and the buzzing of insects behind the windows.

Chris, stupidly, bravely, moves closer on the couch, halving the inches between them, their knees almost touching in the twilight.

“The truth. Because I'm gonna say it as well” Chris husks, his heart pounding. Where does he take that sudden confidence from? What is feeding his boldness? 

Josh. 

Blushing, sheepish, real. Real.

If Chris wants, he can twist his arm and feel the pain of fractured bones and healing skin. If Chris wants, he can scream to the sky and hear the words burst from his lungs. Everything that reality has to offer can be his.

Chris wants Josh. Real. Real. Real Josh.

“I think I'm in love with you.”

The words fall from his lips, naturally. As if he's never said anything else. And now that it's out, he never wants to stop again. He wants to wrap Josh in the words, hold them high into the sun and tell every living soul on this planet and keep them secret just between them. 

Josh is staring at him, intense eyes full of so many things, a universe trapped inside them. His eyebrows are drawn together in thought, the white plaster pulled taut. His messy, dark, dark hair and Chris can't start to comprehend how a person could be this beautiful.

“I don't know what you want me to say.”

“I don't care. Nothing you could possibly say will change what I feel.”

Chris has never been good at reading Josh. He puts his hand over Josh's.

“What d'you think?” Josh hiccups. His eyes spill over. In a matter of heartbeats, Josh is crying. 

Joshua Washington is coming undone just beneath Chris' fingertips. He can feel his rapid pulse below his warm skin.

Chris watches as Josh wipes at his eyes with his other hand, a smile breaking through the clouds on his face. He runs his fingers through his hair once, twice. Intake of breath. Chris holds his breath. Josh exhales his.

“Of course I'm in fucking love with you, Cochise.”


	31. 'Til this Pendulum find Equilibrium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen to sorrow by sleeping at last!!
> 
> WARNINGS for  
> family issues

If things have ever been normal, this is normal. 

Chris takes the bus to the mall and surprises Sam at work. They talk after her shift's over and she drives him to Matt, Jess and Emily's. They watch a couple of movies and Ashley comes around, bringing her girlfriend along. 

Chris even makes a habit of answering people's text within 30 minutes after their arrival, earning a surprised emoji or two. 

And Josh. The next appointment with Agatha, Josh insists on tagging along. It's a long walk from Chris' apartment but the weather is golden and warm and Josh says he needs practice at being out in the open where he's exposed to people. About halfway to the office, Josh takes his hand.

*

“So you're Josh” Agatha deducts when the two boys step into her neat, open office. Her face is unreadable but something tells Chris, that she is excited.

Josh nods.

“I wanted to come along, if it's not too much trouble.”

“Oh no. Not at all. Have a seat, boys.”

Chris finds himself quite far from Josh, both sat in old vintage armchairs. Agatha takes her desk chair to sit in front of them.

“How's your arm, Chris?” Agatha asks, nodding at the general direction of him. He wiggles his fingers, numb pain throbbing in his arm underneath the cast.

“Getting better. The ribs hurt more, actually” he tries himself at a light-hearted approach. 

“Figures. I've had a car crash … well, a few years back and broken ribs are certainly not fun at all.”

Chris smiles at the old woman and she smiles back, warmly. Then, her head turns towards Josh, who sits cross-legged in his chair, listening.

“Are your therapy sessions like this, Josh?”

For a moment, Josh seems startled by her knowledge but then he relaxes and nods. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“Well, you have a good therapist, then.”

She turns back to Chris who is still smiling but now it's because of Josh. For some reason he really wants Agatha and Josh to get on well.

“So, Chris. I have a new prescription for you which will target the memory loss more in-depth than what you're taking at the moment. I also upped the dosage for your anxiety medication, if that's okay with you. I feel like we can tackle the problem easier, if we corner it instead of only focusing on one issue at a time.”

Chris nods, only half understanding but he has trust in her. And with Josh here with him, how could he ever argue against something that could help him be his best for the other boy? For both of them.

*

After the session, they go to the cinema. There's a new movie out that Mr Washington co-directed. Josh told him about his dad a few days prior, when Chris finally mustered up the courage to ask. 

Apparently, Mr Washington's idea of dealing with the loss of his children wasn't supporting his wife or getting therapy but packing his things and leaving to occupy himself with work. Even when Josh was discovered, he didn't so much as call and when it was clear his son would be back he didn't seem to care either.

“He sent me a postcard from Costa Rica last week” Josh says, kicking at an empty cola can. It clatters down the boardwalk and they watch it roll away. “'Son, I'm glad you're better. I've sent your mother tickets for 'Rings of Hell'. Take your friends if you want.'”

“That's all?” Chris asks, appalled. He remembers Mr Washington. A kind man, a good father and a knowledgeable filmmaker. He's pretty much shaped Josh into who he is, beginning with his love for old slasher movies and ending in the way he smiles. It's hard to imagine that man left those who depended so much on him behind without hesitation. 

Chris almost feels sorry for him. What kind of twisted up broken man leaves a son like Josh and a wife like Melinda behind. 

At least he held his promise and so Josh invited the whole gang to see 'Rings of Hell', a comedy/horror movie with a 40% rotten tomatoes score. When they arrive at the only cinema in town, their friends are already there. Ashley has even brought her girlfriend, Brooke, who seemed more than comfortable around the group already. Someone who didn't know would have seen the teenagers and never thought about them again. But to Chris, these people meant the whole world. They were everything to him and his heart slowed down when he approached them, their faces friendly and welcoming. 

“Hey, we were starting to think you'd forgotten about our little date” Emily greeted them, cocking her eyebrow. “Jess, here, was already crying.”

The girl in question, her short cropped silver hair glowing in the fading light of day, rolled her eyes and playfully punched Emily in the shoulder. “Haha, very funny. As you might've guessed, Emily is hiding her insecurity behind jokes again.”

“Wow, and there I was thinking my coping mechanisms were smooth and undetectable.”

It goes like that for a while, joking and catching up until Matt announces that, if they were to waste anymore time they would actually miss the film.

*

It is a pretty boring movie but every now and then, a scene would be so hilariously bad that one of the friends would audibly groan, curse the whole genre and film crew or make a comment that is funnier than the whole film.

Chris doesn't remember when but at one point Josh had casually leaned his head on Chris' shoulder. There is a strange sense of familiarity and novelty, that collide in the moment, the scene so known to Chris' heart yet he hadn't experienced true joy like this in a long time. 

Placing a chaste kiss agains Josh's hairline, Chris lets his eyes flutter shut. This, his friend's laughter, Josh next to him, is bliss.

And Chris can just hope for days like this to be normality, soon, filled with happiness and closeness, filled with friends and Josh's fingers intertwined with his.

Chris hopes that this feeling of peace would go on and on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only 2 more chapters left  
> 2  
> more  
> i am not ready for this to end what the heck i started this like a year ago i'm so emotional right now


	32. The Beginning of The End

"I think we deserve a soft epilogue, my love. We are good people and we've suffered enough."

\- Seventy Years of Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last chapter is gonna be postet now  
> wow i am so??  
> emotional  
> this has been a wild ride thanks for every one that left kudos and nice comments and just appreciated this mess of a fanfic


	33. Equilibrium

Over the past year Chris had started a habit of going to bed late. And not 10pm late but late enough as to not have any missed opportunity after the day has passed.

When night has fallen, Chris lies in bed thinking back on the day, revisiting all the tiny moments that made this particular day special. It's something that Agatha has taught him. Something to battle the depression that lingered in the back of his mind, ready to pounce when he fed it bad thoughts. He also keeps a diary, writing down the most notable days and events in crude detail for to read when the darkness becomes too heavy.

Most days, Chris wakes up before sunrise, watching the sky turn lighter and lighter from his bed by the window.  
“I'll be there at 9” reads the text message as he turned on his phone. Chris smiles to himself, letting himself drift off into dreamless half-sleep for a couple more minutes before getting up and ready. 

He has just finished pouring fresh coffee into two mugs when he hears the door to his apartment falling open, someone entering, loudly, carelessly.

Chris is greeted by cardboard boxes as Josh enters the kitchen. Taking the coffee mugs out of the way, Chris helps the other boy putting the boxes down. They're empty. 

“Morning” Josh grins, taking the coffee he is offered, leaning against the kitchen counter. The two of them linger a little, the silence between them comfortable, a fresh breeze coming through the window by the table. It is going to be a warm day.

“We should get started, if we wanna be ready by the evening” Chris announces, finishing the rest of his lukewarm coffee. 

Before he can turn to put the empty cup in the sink, he is caught by a warm hand around his arm, green eyes sparkling softly. “What?” Chris laughs, feeling a blush creep into his face. After all those months, that intense gaze would still send shivers down his spine.

“I just can't believe we're really doing this” Josh husks, his face only inches from Chris'. His breath smells of coffee. Chris' own breath catches in his throat. He could stare at Josh for hours and never get bored. He could let Josh stare at him for hours and never not feel flustered.

“But I'm ready, Cochise” he adds, breathing a kiss onto Chris' lips, having to stand on tiptoes but he didn't seem to mind. Chris catches himself letting out a pathetic noise as Josh breaks away way too soon. It is commented by a smug grin before they both start on their chores.

*

“Are you folding them or caressing them, it's honestly taking you ages.”

“Sorry, bro, you know I'm affectionate as hell” Josh counters, letting the T-Shirt fall onto the pile dramatically.

Chris chuckles, closing the lid on his own cardboard box labeled 'kitchen #2'. With his hand, he touches the letters absently, the word written in black marker only a few hours prior. 

Chris' flat looks empty. Flooded with sunlight, dust dances in the air where nothing suggests that someone used to live here. Empty rooms and deserted cupboards are all that is left from a life spent within these walls.

“That's the last?” Chris asks, pointing to the box Josh is tending to. He nods, carefully placing the last few items into their rectangular home for the next few hours or days until someone would open the lid again and free them.

“Yup, all finished.” 

Josh stands up, his knees aching from crouching so much but it's nothing compared for the melancholic ache of his heart. They were really going to do this. It is only a matter of hours and they would reach the house by the lake. 

The car outside is already filled to the brim with boxes and bags and that's only half of Chris' stuff. They have been packing boxes and driving miles back and forth for almost two weeks already. But these are the last few things, it would be the last official drive to their new home.

From his place behind the steering wheel, Josh watches Chris gingerly putting his keys into his old mailbox, as agreed on with his landlord. It hits him, then, that he would be able to return to his childhood home whenever he wants but this is most likely the last time Chris would see his apartment of 7 or so years.

“You okay?” Josh asks when Chris shuts the door behind him, taking a shaky breath.

“Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Just a bit emotional” Chris dismisses it with a hand gesture, fastening his seatbelt instead of looking at the other boy. Man. 

Josh would eventually have to stop thinking of them both as kids. They were moving into their own place, they would live there, together. They weren't kids anymore. They haven't been kids for a long while.

The engines roar to life but Josh takes his time to sort the gear, giving Chris a few more seconds to look at the apartment building, undoubtedly feeling the same hesitation that Josh is feeling. But this is good. It is what they both wanted. So he puts in the gear and starts driving away from Chris' old home and away from the town they had grown up in. Towards the new home. Their home. 

It still sounds so strange, provoking butterflies in Josh's stomach when he thinks about it. Never would he have thought that they would get an ending like this. A happy end. A few months ago he wouldn't have even thought he deserved one. 

He looks at Chris in the passenger's seat, smiling as he hums along to the songs on the radio. Chris. How could everything have fallen in place like this? How could the universe have aligned for them to meet over and over again and despite all odds, to end up like this?

It is a miracle, Josh thought. If it weren't for Chris, Josh doesn't think he would believe in something like that at all.

Yet here he is, his boyfriends hand on his thigh as they are on the way to their shared home, happy ever after seems like something very very real.

*  
In the beginning, Chris had been falling into darkness, never ending, unforgiving and all consuming. Never would he have guessed he'd end up falling for Josh instead.

Climbing out of the car – their car – feels surreal in the best of ways. If Chris didn't know better he would think this a dream, a hallucination, a trick. But it isn't. If anything, the incredibility of it all is, what makes it so very real. 

The two of them stand next to each other, regarding the house – their house. It is big but not too large, surrounded by high pine trees, cradled by them. The brick and dark oak facade, looks to Chris like something out of a fairytale. It reminds him of the stories his grandma used to read to him, those of friendly witches and wise fairy godmothers. The door is heavy wood as well, welcoming, inviting, flanked by two small, round windows and flowerpots on the light grey stone steps.

They have been inside many times, bringing in all of Josh's stuff and some of Chris' too but this time feels different.

This time feels final.

It feels like coming home.

Their hands linked together, Josh and Chris start towards their house by the lake, excited, scared, enchanted. Out of the corner of his eye Chris thinks he might have seen a tear roll down Josh's cheek. 

His hand on the doorknob, Josh suddenly falters. The hesitation worries Chris for a split second before Josh turns his face towards him. Chris is sure his boyfriend has never been as beautiful as in this exact moment. 

The late afternoon sun starts to set behind the trees, gentle lightbeams caressing Josh's face, turning it into pure bronze and his eyes green emeralds. It melts everything away, every bit of doubt or worry, every bit of pain from the past and for one glorious heartbeat, the world is a perfect place.

“Are you ready?” Josh asks, his voice barely raised above a whisper, one with the wind that sings in the surrounding treetops. Chris squeezes Josh's hand, determinedly. 

Behind that door lies every new adventure, every new experience, every new moment.

If nothing else in the world made sense, this does. This moment, this place. And Chris can feel, that Josh feels it too.

This is the beginning of something more.

“I am ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END


End file.
